Playing cards aren't just made for poker

[Israel Stein]

At 11:00 AM 12/1/2006, RicB <ricb at pianostemmer.no> wrote:
>Hey there Owen.
>
>Looks like its my turn to back you up 100 %.  I agree totally.   The 
>idea that voicing should be left in the hands of pianists is simply 
>a catastrophic idea. Voicing and indeed all piano technical work 
>should be left up to qualified piano technicians.  Now dont get me 
>wrong... I know a fair few good to excellent pianists that have 
>taken the trade to heart and become fine technicians in their own 
>right.  But none of these would dream of taping nails to shanks with 
>masking tape, regulating dampers as suggested earlier, or suggest 
>that voicing should be done by pianists alone because of some 
>intricate response relationship between the pianist and the 
>instrument. In fact... I have to waggle my head a bit to try and 
>make sense of how that last claim can possibly fit together with the 
>first two myself... :)  I mean... with nails masked onto the shanks, 
>and dampers timed at the get go with all that entails... seems to me 
>the last thing any pianist has to worry about at that point is who 
>voices the piano... if yer gets my meanings.

Ric and all,

This reminds me of my early days in the trade, straight out of 
school, when I was working off and on for a sleazy used piano dealer 
in Cambridge, MA to pay the rent. This guy got a Bosendorfer Imperial 
to sell, and I got the task of resurrecting it from near death 
(couldn't have been more than 10 years old...). The piano came from 
Toronto and had belonged to Anton Cuerti - the concert pianist who 
fancied himself a piano technician, and insisted on doing all the 
work on the thing himself. He had a second action made for it - and 
both had imprinted on the keys dire warnings for anyone but Meister 
Cuerti who would dare to try and voice or regulate the actions. The 
story I got was that Cuerti gave up on this "treasure" after working 
it to death, and bought a couple of Steinways to play on and with. It 
seems that no dealer in Toronto would touch that Bosey, and it ended 
up (for peanuts) in the hands of a wholesaler who hauled it to 
Cambridge - this dealer I was working for had the reputation as "the 
dealer of last resort", he was so desperate for stock to sell...

Both actions were a nightmare of grease graphite that I had to spend 
hours scraping out of there, a totally insane regulation and hammers 
needled to hell...  Replacing anything was not an option in this 
business model - so I had to make it work, to the best of my ability, 
as is... And others after me tried too.

The piano sat in the shop for close to three years. No serious 
pianist who ever tried it gave it a second thought... Eventually it 
was bought by a young rock-and-roll star wannabe with more money than 
sense who was setting up a recording studio. I think he liked it 
because it was big and shiny...

I think there is some sort of moral to this story...

Israel Stein



>I appreciated your quote from Ed McMorrow.  Couldnt be more right on.
>
>What gets me in all this.... especially when it comes from a pianist 
>who has spent years mastering the art of piano playing... is the 
>turnaround that is made.  It takes every bit as long to create a 
>very fine concert piano tech as it ever did take to create a fine 
>concert pianist.  As in all things, all trades, all disciplines.... 
>one simply does not open a book, start dinking around on ones own 
>and become more then a fledgling plebe without at some time or 
>another seriously approach learning the subject matter. Piano 
>technical work is no exception.
>Cheers
>RicB
>