On Sat, 15 Aug 1998, Leslie W Bartlett wrote:
> Now another question, regarding a 1970 or so Chickering grand.
> Badly needs regulation, and probably could use some hammer juicing. But
> is it worth a rebuild?? In this question, consider the owner has two
> graduate degrees in music, one of them in keyboard. She got it as a high
> school grad. gift. But it doesn't give her much satisfaction these days.
> I think regulation will help a lot, but the piano itself isn't very
> powerful and sustain is quite poor.
> What would you tell her?????????/
How about the truth?
The fact is that a 1970's Chickering piano was a piece of junkola,
pure and simple. And the same can be said of 1960, 1950, 1940, and 1930
Chickerings as well. By no stretch of the imagination were any of these
instruments "performance pianos" which could in any way be compared
with the likes of a Steinway, for example. No way. Further, 1920 and
earlier American Piano Company Chickerings were not much better- they
are remembered because many were outfitted with the APC's outstand-
ing reproducing player system, the AMPICO, certainly NOT because of the
quality of the Chickering piano, itself, which--like its other APC
stablemates--underwent huge, quality-diminishing changes when it ceased
to be a product of the Chickering family, itself, and instead became a
part of the purely-profit-motivated APC corporate empire. Fortunately for
true Ampico afficionados, a few Steinway pianos were custom-outfitted
with the Ampico player mechanism and a very few competently-restored
ones exist today to remind us of how that truly outstanding reproducing
player could sound when placed in an equally-outstanding piano, too--
namely the Steinway. It certainly wasn't the APC Chickering.
Pianotech was originally conceived and implemented by BYU. Its first
administrator was a gentleman called Jack Reeves. Over the years of
its existence, questions concerning Chickering's quality, value and ap-
parently vastly over-stated and totally-undeserved reputation have
regularly appeared in this forum. By and large these Chickering-oriented
questions go unsatisfactorily answered, or sometimes are just ignored
altogether. Part of the problem lies wih the fact that these valuations
and impressions are based upon either 20th century Chickerings, or else
earlier ones which by now are either totally worn out and unplayable and
therefor bear no relationship to their original selves, or, if "rebuilt",
have been the result of careless, indifferent and/or budget-minded work.
At any rate the end result is the same--these "Chickerings" are such in
name only. The true Chickering still remains an enigma--unseen, unheard,
and virtually forgotten today. That is indeed a shame. The Chickering
piano played such an important part in the history of the American Piano
that it deserves a better fate. Much better.
The Chickering piano, the one upon which its once-formidable reputation
was originally founded, was a product of the 19th century and ceased
production almost a century ago. These piano are no more and haven't been
for a long time. The most common criticism of these long-ago Chickerings
is that they were "over-engineered". Modern technicians are quick to
criticize their multiple part pinblocks, their now-enigmatic and ap-
parently overly-complicated "screw-in" type damper system, their many in-
dividually tied strings, their original board and bridges; their archaic
stringing scale and--above all--their very heavily weighted, non-neophyte-
friendly actions which are couple with extremely soft hammers. The upshot
is that such technicians frequently recommend wholesale changes when re-
building a Chickering grand-- for example, completely throwing out and
replacing the original board and bridges, the stringing scale, the com-
plete damper system and the entire keyboard, action and hammer assembly
in the belief that so doing will be an vast "improvement" over the
original. Perhaps, but you are deluding both yourself and your customer
big-time if you believe that after so doing you still have a
Chickering piano. You don't. No way.
Such an approach to "rebuilding" a Chickering misses the point entirely.
The one thing above all others which originally made a 19th century Chick-
ering a true Chickering was its deep, dark, distinctive and immediately-
recognizable voice and quality of tone which was composed of more
fundamental, more lower-partials and fewer higher partials than anything
else found in the world of pianodom. This distinctive Chickering quality
of tone was specifically evoked by that now-misunderstood combination of
coupling its very-heavily-weighted action with an extremely soft hammer.
It's not for nothing that Jonas Chickering used to call the hammer the
"heart of the piano". More than a stringing scale, a bridge desigen, a
complicated pinblock, a misunderstood damper system, a bunch of
individually tied strings, or a non-neophyte-user-friendly action, the
Chickering piano was above all A SOUND--THE CHICKERING SOUND. It is upon
this sound that Chickering's reputation was founded. Assessing it is very
easy: If a piano has this sound, it is a true Chickering. If it doesn't
have this sound--read here ALL 20th Century Chickerings and most of the
older ones which have been either rebuilt, or remanufactured--than it is
NOT. Few of the older, true Chickerings remain today. Few. Chances are
that you will never hear one. Not one. :(
What you do hear, what has existed for virtually the entire 20th Century,
what you have come to know as a Chickering, is an imposter, a fake, a
rip-off--merely another mediocre, poor-sounding, poor-playing, cheaply-
made stencil piano, a Chickering in name only, built in the belief that a
naive, ill-informed buying public is ignorant enough to buy only the name
and not the instrument. Of course, the manufacturers are right. The name
continues to sell because most people wouldn't know a good-sounding,
good-playing instrument if it fell on their head-- so the piano owner
thinks: "Wow, I have a really good piano, a Chickering; and the informed
technician thinks: "Wow, what a piece of junk; where did Chickering get
its impressive reputation anyway?! Certainly not from this!" You bet
they didn't!
The fact is that by the 1970's the flush handle on the American Piano
Industry had already been pulled, the water in the bowl, having already
passed the point-of-no-return, was swirling mightily and was inevitably
headed for that final, resounding flush, the echo of which can still be
heard today. Which is why what little vestiges of the American Piano
Industry remain today resemble nothing so much as Hiroshima on the day
AFTER we dropped the bomb. Your client's Chickering comes from that era.
Lucky client. Lucky you. Not!
As to your question: "Should this '70's Chickering be rebuilt?", forget
it. It's a waste of time. The piano is junk. Further, why waste time
even trying to voice and regulate it, or, for that matter, even try to
tune it? Giving it your best effort, you'll still only wind up with a
piece of junkola which has been tuned, voiced and regulated as well as it
will permit, which is not very well at all. The problem is NOT the quality
of your work, it is the quality-- or rather the lack of it--of the
instrument itself. Lest you think this this criticism unjustly harsh, just
look at other "name" pianos from the same era like Knabe, Mason & Hamlin,
Steck and Weber, to name just a few. Like the Chickering, all these were
also embarassments to their names (to say nothing of "lesser" pianos).The
fact is that no amount of tuning, regulating or voicing, no matter how
competently it might be done, can do anything to counteract the effects of
flat boards, loose ribs, sloppily-made bridges, careless pinning and
stringing, balsa-wood pinblocks, no or negative string down-bearing,
lousy scales, generic, bottom-of-the-barrel action parts, El Cheapo
hammers with their felts coming loose from their wood moldings, and
the rampant-mediocrity built into such pianos from start to finish. You
know you're looking at real junk when a Pearl River, or a Horugel starts
looking good by comparison--and they do! So forget about trying to
rebuild this piece of junk and try to find an instrument more worthy
of your time and talents.
Both playing and servicing the piano have much in common. It is not
for nothing that Chopin required his students to practice on only
the finest-quality instruments. Chopin realized that their progress
as pianists was directly dependent upon the quality of the pianos
they played. The same is true of the technician--his progress is
dependent upon the quality of the instruments upon which he works.
Put another way, the only way to learn concert-quality tuning, regu-
lating and voicing is to practice those skills on firt-class pianos.
Constantly. So instead of wasting your time fooling with that 70's
"Chickering" find yourself a Steinway, a Bechstein, an older Blu-
thner, or perhaps one of Ernest's Knabes, George's Stecks, Albert's
Webers, or Jonas's Chickerings and direct your attentions to some-
thing vastly more worthwhile. Both the piano and YOU will benefit.
Does this mean that a "70's Chickering is to be regarded as a totally-
useless piece of junk? Of course not! One must remember, however, that
with an instrument of this caliber, one in which function FOLLOWS form,
rather than preceeds it, those uses will include providing a convenient
place for a vase of flowers, a pile of unplayed music, a collection of
framed photographs, or even a sleeping cat, but NOT the performance of
music. On the other hand, a lonely person can put a leash around the
leg of such a piano and then take it for a walk around the block on a
winter's evening, pretending all the time that it's really a Golden
Retriever with a cold nose.
For those who insist on looking for at least the remnant of a silver
lining in even the darkest of clouds, there is good news: The decal,
itself, is impressive and that is certainly a highly important virtue
in a modern world where piano-quality is now seen, not heard.
Les (occasionally accused of being opinionated) Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net
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