information for a dissertation

[antares]

Hello Laurie Hudicek,

I am a piano technician in Holland.
I have worked for many pianists who are involved in contemporary music where
'prepared piano' is often used.
I also work for the Amsterdam Conservatory and there are very many pianists
who like to  experiment with prepared piano.

I can imagine that musicians like to 'fiddle around' with a piano to get all
sorts of weird sounds out of the instruments.
>From the piano technicians point of view however it is mostly a disaster.
Why?

Because pianists do things that piano technicians normally speaking would
not do, like touching bass strings with sweaty hands, putting stickers on
dampers, use chalk on strings (for marks) put stickers on strings, put all
kinds of metal objects on or in between strings etc etc.

>From my piano technicians point of view it is strictly forbidden to touch
dampers at all.
I know quite a few pianists and not one of them has experienced the grueling
training I had in several piano factories. Especially the remembrance of my
training in preparing grand piano dampers at Yamaha in Japan is enough to
get me very mad when I see otherwise innocent pianists fooling around with
the so very sensitive grand dampers.
Putting stickers on dampers, which is very common among pianists, always
leaves behind a residue of sticker glue, because the pianists have no idea
how sticky the glue is and besides, they use the stickers, but never take
the polite trouble to remove them after the concert. And if they do so, the
dampers often will be twisted and bent because the sticker does not come off
easily.
Sweaty or moist hands will leave corrosion marks on the bass strings and
steel strings.
etc etc.

I think that you will get my point when I say that they should only use the
piano for this purpose with the help and advice of the (piano) technician
involved,




friendly greetings
from

Antares,

Amsterdam, Holland

"where music is, no harm can be"

visit my website at :  http://www.concertpianoservice.nl/


> From: LHudicek@AOL.COM
> Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 08:16:48 EST
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: information for a dissertation
> 
> Hello Piano Technicians,
> 
> I am a pianist writing a dissertation on prepared piano and playing on the
> inside of the piano and was wondering if I could get some thoughts from some
> of you on the subject, good AND bad!  My goal is to write a document that
> helps pianists who are starting this music for the first time.  Hopefully, it
> will help them, also, to not damage the instrument at all.
> 
> Any strong feelings?
> 
> Have you ever seen any damage from this type of music? (i.e. damage to the
> strings, dampers, soundboard, etc?)
> 
> Thank you!
> Laurie Hudicek
> lhudicek@aol.com
> 
> 
> 
>