Chickering rebuild (long)

[Michiel van Loon]

Hi Less +ACY- all,
Does Winter +ACY- Co also fit in the Chickering catagory?
I have met two 1940 Winter grands(?)  that made to this side of the
Atlantic.
One I sentenced to death by telling the whole truth when the owner wanted
the POJ (piece of junk) to be rebuild.
The other I have to tune once a year until the old lady dies, then I'll her
heirs the truth.
Michiel van Loon
mvanloon+AEA-xs4all.nl
Meppel
Nederland
-----Original Message-----
From: Les Smith +ADw-lessmith+AEA-buffnet.net+AD4-
To: pianotech+AEA-ptg.org +ADw-pianotech+AEA-ptg.org+AD4-
Date: Saturday, August 22, 1998 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: Chickering rebuild (long)


+AD4-
+AD4-
+AD4-On Sat, 15 Aug 1998, Leslie W Bartlett wrote:
+AD4-
+AD4APg- Now another question, regarding a 1970 or so Chickering grand.
+AD4APg- Badly needs regulation, and probably could use some hammer juicing. But
+AD4APg- is it worth a rebuild??  In this question, consider the owner has two
+AD4APg- graduate degrees in music, one of them in keyboard.  She got it as a high
+AD4APg- school grad. gift. But it doesn't give her much satisfaction these days.
+AD4APg- I think regulation will help a lot, but the piano itself isn't very
+AD4APg- powerful and sustain is quite poor.
+AD4APg- What would you tell her?????????/
+AD4-
+AD4-How about the truth?
+AD4-
+AD4-The fact is that a 1970's Chickering piano was a piece of junkola,
+AD4-pure and simple. And the same can be said of 1960, 1950, 1940, and 1930
+AD4-Chickerings as well. By no stretch of the imagination were any of these
+AD4-instruments +ACI-performance pianos+ACI- which could in any way be compared
+AD4-with the likes of a Steinway, for example. No way. Further, 1920 and
+AD4-earlier American Piano Company Chickerings were not much better- they
+AD4-are remembered because  many were outfitted with the APC's outstand-
+AD4-ing reproducing player system, the AMPICO, certainly NOT because of the
+AD4-quality of the Chickering piano, itself, which--like its other APC
+AD4-stablemates--underwent huge, quality-diminishing changes when it ceased
+AD4-to be a product of the Chickering family, itself, and instead became a
+AD4-part of the purely-profit-motivated APC corporate empire. Fortunately for
+AD4-true Ampico afficionados, a few Steinway pianos were custom-outfitted
+AD4-with the Ampico player mechanism and a very few competently-restored
+AD4-ones exist today to remind us of how that truly outstanding reproducing
+AD4-player could sound when placed in an equally-outstanding piano, too--
+AD4-namely the Steinway. It certainly wasn't the APC Chickering.
+AD4-
+AD4-Pianotech was originally conceived and implemented by BYU. Its first
+AD4-administrator was a gentleman called Jack Reeves. Over the years of
+AD4-its existence, questions concerning Chickering's quality, value and ap-
+AD4-parently vastly over-stated and totally-undeserved reputation have
+AD4-regularly appeared in this forum. By and large these Chickering-oriented
+AD4-questions go unsatisfactorily answered, or sometimes are just ignored
+AD4-altogether. Part of the problem lies wih the fact that these valuations
+AD4-and impressions are based upon either 20th century Chickerings, or else
+AD4-earlier ones which by now are either totally worn out and unplayable and
+AD4-therefor bear no relationship to their original selves, or, if +ACI-rebuilt+ACI-,
+AD4-have been the result of careless, indifferent and/or budget-minded work.
+AD4-At any rate the end result is the same--these +ACI-Chickerings+ACI- are such in
+AD4-name only. The true Chickering still remains an enigma--unseen, unheard,
+AD4-and virtually forgotten today. That is indeed a shame. The Chickering
+AD4-piano played such an important part in the history of the American Piano
+AD4-that it deserves a better fate. Much better.
+AD4-
+AD4- The Chickering piano, the one upon which its once-formidable reputation
+AD4-was originally founded, was a product of the 19th century and ceased
+AD4-production almost a century ago. These piano are no more and haven't been
+AD4-for a long time. The most common criticism of these long-ago Chickerings
+AD4-is that they were +ACI-over-engineered+ACI-. Modern technicians are quick to
+AD4-criticize their multiple part pinblocks, their now-enigmatic and ap-
+AD4-parently overly-complicated +ACI-screw-in+ACI- type damper system, their many in-
+AD4-dividually tied strings, their original board and bridges+ADs- their archaic
+AD4-stringing scale and--above all--their very heavily weighted, non-neophyte-
+AD4-friendly actions which are couple with extremely soft hammers. The upshot
+AD4-is that such technicians frequently recommend wholesale changes when re-
+AD4-building a Chickering grand-- for example, completely throwing out and
+AD4-replacing the original board and bridges, the stringing scale, the com-
+AD4-plete damper system and the entire keyboard, action and hammer assembly
+AD4-in the belief that so doing will be an vast +ACI-improvement+ACI- over the
+AD4-original. Perhaps, but you are deluding both yourself and your customer
+AD4-big-time if you believe that after so doing  you still have a
+AD4-Chickering piano. You don't. No way.
+AD4-
+AD4-Such an approach to +ACI-rebuilding+ACI- a Chickering misses the point entirely.
+AD4-The one thing above all others which originally made a 19th century Chick-
+AD4-ering a true Chickering was its deep, dark, distinctive and immediately-
+AD4-recognizable voice and quality of tone which was composed of more
+AD4-fundamental, more lower-partials and fewer higher partials than anything
+AD4-else found in the world of pianodom. This distinctive Chickering quality
+AD4-of tone was specifically evoked by that now-misunderstood combination of
+AD4-coupling its very-heavily-weighted action with an extremely soft hammer.
+AD4-It's not for nothing that Jonas Chickering used to call the hammer the
+AD4AIg-heart of the piano+ACI-. More than a stringing scale, a bridge desigen, a
+AD4-complicated pinblock, a misunderstood damper system, a bunch of
+AD4-individually tied strings, or a non-neophyte-user-friendly action, the
+AD4-Chickering piano was above all A SOUND--THE CHICKERING SOUND. It is upon
+AD4-this sound that Chickering's reputation was founded. Assessing it is very
+AD4-easy: If a piano has this sound, it is a true Chickering. If it doesn't
+AD4-have this sound--read here ALL 20th Century Chickerings and most of the
+AD4-older ones which have been either rebuilt, or remanufactured--than it is
+AD4-NOT. Few of the older, true Chickerings remain today. Few. Chances are
+AD4-that  you will never hear one. Not one.

+AD4-
+AD4-What you do hear, what has existed for virtually the entire 20th Century,
+AD4-what you have come to know as a Chickering, is an imposter, a fake, a
+AD4-rip-off--merely another mediocre, poor-sounding, poor-playing, cheaply-
+AD4-made stencil piano, a Chickering in name only, built in the belief that a
+AD4-naive, ill-informed buying public is ignorant enough to buy only the name
+AD4-and not the instrument. Of course, the manufacturers are right. The name
+AD4-continues to sell because most people wouldn't know a good-sounding,
+AD4-good-playing instrument if it fell on their head-- so the piano owner
+AD4-thinks: +ACI-Wow, I have a really good piano, a Chickering+ADs- and the informed
+AD4-technician thinks: +ACI-Wow, what a piece of junk+ADs- where did Chickering get
+AD4-its impressive reputation anyway?+ACE- Certainly not from this+ACEAIg- You bet
+AD4-they didn't+ACE-
+AD4-
+AD4-The fact is that by the 1970's the flush handle on the American Piano
+AD4-Industry had already been pulled, the water in the bowl, having already
+AD4-passed the point-of-no-return, was swirling mightily and was inevitably
+AD4-headed for that final, resounding flush, the echo of which can still be
+AD4-heard today. Which is why what little vestiges of the American Piano
+AD4-Industry remain today resemble nothing so much as Hiroshima on the day
+AD4-AFTER we dropped the bomb.  Your client's Chickering comes from that era.
+AD4-Lucky client. Lucky you. Not+ACE-
+AD4-
+AD4-As to your question: +ACI-Should this '70's Chickering be rebuilt?+ACI-, forget
+AD4-it. It's a waste of time. The piano is junk. Further, why waste time
+AD4-even trying to voice and regulate it, or, for that matter, even try to
+AD4-tune it? Giving it your best effort, you'll still only wind up with a
+AD4-piece of junkola which has been tuned, voiced and regulated as well as it
+AD4-will permit, which is not very well at all. The problem is NOT the quality
+AD4-of your work, it is the quality-- or rather the lack of it--of the
+AD4-instrument itself. Lest you think this this criticism unjustly harsh, just
+AD4-look at other +ACI-name+ACI- pianos from the same era like Knabe, Mason +ACY- Hamlin,
+AD4-Steck and Weber, to name just a few. Like the Chickering, all these were
+AD4-also embarassments to their names (to say nothing of +ACI-lesser+ACI- pianos).The
+AD4-fact is that no amount of tuning, regulating or voicing, no matter how
+AD4-competently it might be done, can do anything to counteract the effects of
+AD4-flat boards, loose ribs, sloppily-made bridges, careless pinning and
+AD4-stringing, balsa-wood pinblocks,  no or negative string down-bearing,
+AD4-lousy scales, generic, bottom-of-the-barrel action parts, El Cheapo
+AD4-hammers with their felts coming loose from their wood moldings, and
+AD4-the rampant-mediocrity built into such pianos from start to finish. You
+AD4-know you're looking at real junk when a Pearl River, or a Horugel starts
+AD4-looking good by comparison--and they do+ACE-  So forget about trying to
+AD4-rebuild this piece of junk and try to find an instrument more worthy
+AD4-of your time and talents.
+AD4-
+AD4-Both playing and servicing the piano have much in common. It is not
+AD4-for nothing that Chopin required his students to practice on only
+AD4-the finest-quality instruments. Chopin realized that their progress
+AD4-as pianists was directly dependent upon the quality of the pianos
+AD4-they played. The same is true of the technician--his progress is
+AD4-dependent upon the quality of the instruments upon which he works.
+AD4-Put another way, the only way to learn concert-quality tuning, regu-
+AD4-lating and voicing is to practice those skills on firt-class pianos.
+AD4-Constantly. So instead of wasting your time fooling with that 70's
+AD4AIg-Chickering+ACI- find yourself a Steinway, a Bechstein, an older Blu-
+AD4-thner, or perhaps one of Ernest's Knabes, George's Stecks, Albert's
+AD4-Webers, or Jonas's Chickerings and direct your attentions to some-
+AD4-thing vastly more worthwhile. Both the piano and YOU will benefit.
+AD4-
+AD4-Does this mean that a +ACI-70's Chickering is to be regarded as a totally-
+AD4-useless piece of junk? Of course not+ACE- One must remember, however, that
+AD4-with an instrument of this caliber, one in which function FOLLOWS form,
+AD4-rather than preceeds it, those uses will include providing a convenient
+AD4-place for a vase of flowers, a pile of unplayed music, a collection of
+AD4-framed photographs, or even a sleeping cat, but NOT the performance of
+AD4-music. On the other hand, a lonely person can put a leash around the
+AD4-leg of such a piano and then take it for a walk around the block on a
+AD4-winter's evening, pretending all the time that it's really a Golden
+AD4-Retriever with a cold nose.
+AD4-
+AD4-For those who insist on looking for at least the remnant of a silver
+AD4-lining in even the darkest of clouds, there is good news: The decal,
+AD4-itself, is impressive and that is certainly a highly important virtue
+AD4-in a modern world where piano-quality is now seen, not heard.
+AD4-
+AD4-Les (occasionally accused of being opinionated) Smith
+AD4-lessmith+AEA-buffnet.net
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