Piano Designers are Sadists

[Alan W Deverell]

Mike & others - you missed my invitation to "Piano Wish List" - all
the things you would like to see improved in pianos - a "Wish You
Wouldn't List" is perhaps where your posting belongs - but are the
makers "Listening" to this forum ?

Where are all the BRAVE and critical Technicians who want to see
improvements in the world of Pianos & Piano Music ?

Sitting on your buts complaining among yourselves won't change much !

There are answers to YOUR questions and mine - the Piano Market should
NOT have to suffer these and other inadequacies - people actually need
educating about the qualities and properties of pianos.

Model T Fords are not made any more - why put up with Model T Pianos ?

We have a wealth of modern Technology, Instrumentation and the
Material Sciences to make the product better - why not do it ?

When did you post a suggestion, criticism or complaint to Steinway or
Baldwin or PianoDisc ..etc...... last ?

I'm anxious for some REAL action - how about you ?

Rave, rave, rave......

AlanD - trying to see if there are any hornets in this nest (forum)

>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-pianotech@ptg.org
>[mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]On Behalf
>Of Michael Jorgensen
>Sent: Saturday, June 20, 1998 4:54 AM
>To: Pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: Piano Designers are Sadists
>
>
>Think I'm Paranoid?,
>     Why do they design wood dowel letoff buttons coupled with extra
>long jack regulating screws?
>     Why do they design pianos which are hard to figure out
>how to get
>open, humiliating even the most experienced techs?
>     What's the real reason they invented the sostinuto?
>     Why are lid props placed so you can't put even the
>shortest tuning
>lever on the top pins parallel to the string?
>     Why are console lids designed to go "Bang" when you
>close them so
>the customer thinks you hit their piano with a sledge?
>     Why do they always play around with the specs on action
>replacement
>parts just enough to fool the tech into still using them, yet just
>enough to cause all kinds of problems?  (that must have taken some
>careful study!)
>     Why do they design fall boards to catch pencils and shoot them
>right into the capstans where they can do the most harm?
>     Why do they have sixteen screws to remove an action with the two
>fall board ones too close to the the case with end blocks carefully
>designed to bounce these microscopic screws on the floor to
>hide in the
>shag rug or down the crack along the key?
>    Why do replacement hammer shanks have extra long drop
>screws to hit
>the pinblock and give you three choices--cut em off, plane down the
>pinblock or lower the drop one inch?
>    Why do they put any locks on pianos?
>    Why do console/studio fallboards have to make it impossible to
>regulate capstans without removal and then be a mental test on how to
>put them back? (afew you can tip up, but watch out they're
>designed to
>fall and kill your wrists)
>    Why do they design lids and capo bars to force us to use longer
>tuning hammer tips and get poorer results?
>    Why don't they use the right amount of counterbearing so
>the piano
>can be easily tuned and stable?
>    Why design an action so you can't get a wippen out
>without removing
>all kinds of stuff?
>    Why do they design music racks held together with
>microscopic screws
>which can't carry any load and cannot be "redesigned"?
>     Why do they design the tenor strings to have such low
>tension they
>go wild one month into a weather change? (Who cares about an
>even tenor
>break if the thing is going to have bar room octaves that fast!)
>     Why use those buzzy continuous hinges anywhere on a piano?
>     Why don't they support a grand music desk somewhere along its
>length instead of just the two ends using only a quarter
>inch of wood?
>     Why would anyone design a lid so to be opened the piano
>has to come
>away from the wall?
>     All pianos should have toe blocks!
>     Why can't the Japanesse and Americans all use the same wire size
>number for the same size string?
>     Why do the Russians reverse the order of the tuning pins in the
>bass so the tuner gets confused about which pin to be on and breaks a
>string?
>     Why do they design trapwork to rub on each other?
>     Why do they design it so the pedal rods have to fall
>out of place
>when the action is removed?
>     Why do they design pedal lyres to come apart?
>     Why do they design the braces to fall out?
>     Why did they ever have to invent the una-chorda pedal?  can't
>pianists learn to play soft without it? doesn't it add an
>awful lot of
>cost with very little gain?
>     Then there's those fake pedals, connected to the same
>trap lever!
>I had one customer freaked with amazement when they saw that!
>
>
>Boy am I glad it's Friday!
>