Uurekas Arkley Center --Erwins Steinway D up date

[Erwinspiano at aol.com]

Hi All
    I got this very satisfying post  from  My friend at the Arkely center of 
the performing arts in Eureka Calif. (See  Arkly.com)   Where my 1928 Steinway 
D now  lives.  This as you may remember was the piano on display in  
Rochester  N. Y., at last years national  convention.
   
  Sincerely 
   Dale Erwin
.
   
 
 
Hello  Dale,

Hope you and your family are  well.  I just thought I’d catch up with you for 
a moment and report on  the doings at the Arkley  Center here in Eureka.  The 
D has  had only incidental use up till this last weekend.  The Eureka jazz 
festival  used it several times, though I have no idea what anyone thought of 
it, since  I wasn’t around after the first tuning.  But the first “artist” to 
use  the piano (theatre management’s term) was Jim Brickman, who accompanied 
both  himself and his vocal performing partner in a concert of his own and 
Disney  songs.  Luis warned me that Brickman (whom he used to travel with on  tour) 
was extremely picky about  the pianos he plays, normally hauling a Yamaha C7 
around with him.   Apparently he’s able to detect the slightest unison wander 
or octave roll—and  likes to point them out to the tech.  I found the idea 
that he would  consider a C7 to be somehow a good benchmark against which to 
measure all  other pianos gave me a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, but 
then he  made it all clear by the hard, hot sound he gets (and likes) from the 
way he  has the piano amplified.  I did an obsessively detailed tuning, and as  
some brassiness had developed in the mid-section of the instrument, I voiced  
that down a bit, and did a super quick, 2 thin drops in the string grooves  
type juicing of several notes in the high treble break where the attack was  
just a bit cotton-y, made sure the shift pedal voicing was OK up there, and  
crossed my fingers.  I came back around 5 pm at Brickman’s request, and  sat in 
the audience where he was just finishing up sound check.  I heard  him 
off-handedly remark to his partner that this was “definitely the best  piano I’ve 
played on the entire tour”.  He left the stage without  bothering to point 
anything out, and I was informed that a quick touch up  would be just fine—no 
complaints.  As I was doing that, Luis came to me  and told me he wanted me to know 
that Brickman loved the piano, and was  completely satisfied.  I’m told (I wasn
’t there) that he paused at one  point in the performance to tell the 
audience that he was aware the instrument  was a new acquisition, and was “extremely 
pleased” to be playing it and was  enjoying it a lot.   
So there you have it—the  thundering approval of the instrument keeps rolling 
 in….. 
Greg  Granoff


 



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