[pianotech] Changeable pitch action

[Jim]

John,
you are absolutely correct . . .  I actually have one of these Heintzman & 
Co beasts in my living room, and the keys do indeed move a half octave in 
either direction., with the excess keys disappearing in to hollowed out 
cheek blocks. ( Not quite an octave, as there is no F#) The scale is 
overlapping strung as in a standard piano, but the plate is 6" wider in 
both directions, and also has the inadvertent result of a larger soundboard 
by about 4 sq ft.

I saw two of these pianos in the late 80's in the Georgian Bay area of 
Ontario, and bought the third.
It isn't straight strung, as Wim had suggested, but the keys are all 
straight, and the action has an extra set of components at the bottom, that 
compensates for the tenor and treble break.

I don't know if this feature makes it more valuable, but certainly rare. 
I've only seen 3 in twenty five years of tuning, and as I mentioned, I 
bought the third one.

If anyone is interested, I'll take some pics and post them on my website 
www.pianoguy.com
cheers

Jim Kinnear
Collingwood, ON
Canada
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Ross
  To: pianotech at ptg.org
  Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 9:30 PM
  Subject: Re: [pianotech] Changeable pitch action


  Heintzman & Company, Toronto, Canada, made one.
  It transposed more than one note.
  I saw one in the 70's, but was not in the business, so didn't take much 
notice.
  It had extra keys, and the keybed moved sideways, into the cheekblocks.
  John Ross
  Windsor, Nova Scotia
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: David Boyce
    To: pianotech at ptg.org
    Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 6:59 PM
    Subject: Re: [pianotech] Changeable pitch action


    Irving Berlin had a key-change piano: "Berlin was a self-taught pianist 
and one who reputedly restricted himself mainly to the black keys of the 
piano. Eventually he bought a special piano with a lever under the 
keyboard, enabling him to transpose his music mechanically" 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Berlin )

    David.
  John M.Ross
  Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada. 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090107/4699a1e0/attachment.html>