[pianotech] Joshua Bell - Piano Prep

[Dean May]

Hi Terry

Personally I came away from your first post with a great deal of respect for
the tech involved, exactly as you allude below to being your intent. I see
no harm, no foul. Quite the opposite. If I was going to recommend a top
concert tech in the Tampa area his would now be the first to come to mind
based on your description of him.  

Dean

Dean W May                (812) 235-5272

PianoRebuilders.com    (888) DEAN-MAY

Terre Haute IN 47802



-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Terry Farrell
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 1:05 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Joshua Bell - Piano Prep

Thanks for the backup and faith Keith, and maybe in some way I erred in
stating someone's name (does the PTG have some thing about this like the
fee-discussion thing?). But it you re-read my post, I have absolutely ZERO
negative to say about "the technician" who prepped the piano. I speculate
about the piano maybe purposely being prepped to not overpower or take focus
away from the violist - that would require a skilled technician. I talk
about perceived numerous false beats in the high treble - and identify them
as such - not poor tuning work, but rather a piano that has defects.

In fact, with regard to his tuning performance on this particular piano for
this particular evening, I stated: "I could certainly hear that the unisons
were pretty darn nice - well, perfect as far as I could tell."  What on
earth is negative with that? I only meant to compliment his work in general
AND his work this evening. And I even threw in a generalization: "Pretty
safe to say I think that he is pretty darn top-notch."

I did say: "The piano sounded to me dull and lifeless."  That's is the
PIANO, not any technicians work. I do realize that a piano technician COULD
do work to a nice sounding piano and make it sound that way - but I made no
statement that this piano technician do anything of the sort on his own. A
piano can sound that way all by itself by having a dead soundboard of poorly
matched hammers, etc. - nothing to do with the evening's piano prep.

Again, I stated:  "I was wondering if a piano might be purposely voiced in
such a manner for a concert such as this - so that the piano doesn't
overpower or take the focus away from the violist." IF such work was
actually done, IMHO, it would require a piano technician of great skill and
experience to know how to tone down a piano in such a manner and to know
exactly how much to do it. And I also added tons of
caveats:  "Don't know if that was the piano, my ears, the acoustics where I
sat, or what."  Maybe the piano sounded great and I have too much wax in my
ears! And beyond that I NEVER made one negative statement regarding the
piano technician or his work on this piano. I just re-read my post and I
sure don't see anything of the sort there.  
And I surely didn't mean to if it's just my eyes that aren't seeing it.

Maybe I am blind and lack perception. Is it me? I meant to complement the
piano tech's work, ask about whether a piano would ever purposely be voiced
to sound like I perceived it, and qualify everything by identifying that I
am not any sort of expert at this kind of work and that maybe my ears, or
the acoustics, or anything else may have influenced my perception.

I scrutinized the piano. I scrutinized the acoustics. I scrutinized my lack
of knowledge and experience in this area. I scrutinized decisions made by
the "powers to be" about how to direct the piano prep (not the tech - maybe
Joshua Bell directs piano prep to tone the piano down - I don't know -
that's why I'm asking!). I did not scrutinize the piano technician or his
work. I did however make a number of statements regarding the tech's
superior skills and experience, etc., etc.

I most certainly did not knowingly or intentionally make one single
disparaging remark or observation regarding the piano technician's skills,
performance, end product or anything else.

Or am I totally missing something here?

All respect for the subject piano technician and everyone else,

Terry Farrell


On Feb 6, 2011, at 12:24 PM, Mr. Mac's wrote:

>
> On Feb 6, 2011, at 11:12 AM, Ryan Sowers wrote:
>
>> Your story was very interesting but I feel uncomfortable that you 
>> have scrutinized a fellow-technician's work in a negative manner on a 
>> public forum that has thousands of members. If I had been the 
>> technician in question I would be angry and hurt. I mean this in as 
>> friendly way as possible towards you. I believe you had no ill 
>> intentions, and are genuinely interested in discussing concert prep.
>>
>> In these situations I recommend keeping the concert and the 
>> technician anonymous to avoid any bad feelings. Then everyone could 
>> feel comfortable discussing the topic. :)
>
> Ryan,
>
> He was just sharing what he experienced,
>   and in his enthusiasm, he mentioned someone's name.
>
> An oversight, or error in judgement, I suspect.
> Or put in another way from long ago,
> "A slip between the cup and the lip."
>
> I, too, have done likewise in the past,
>   more than I care to share, or bring to remembrance.
>
> Keith