Another example of two screw ups! Joe ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Gorley To: joegarrett at earthlink.net;pianotech at ptg.org Sent: 9/21/2011 12:18:29 AM Subject: Re: [pianotech] Petrofs A local theater booked an act from New York. The pianist advised that we should expect broken strings. He said he broke many strings wherever he played. The theater had 2 Yamaha U-1's. He broke 8 bass strings in 3 days on the pit piano, in spite of having his own speaker monitor. The piano never broke a string before that time nor after. Tom Gorley Registered Piano Technician On Sep 20, 2011, at 10:47 PM, Joseph Garrett wrote: Wim said: "When a string breaks at the pin or hitch pin, it's usually a weak string. When it breaks at the agraff, it's usually hard playing. Do you remember where this string was broken? As Jerry mentioned, the guy might be practicing a particular piece of music where that note is hit repeatedly. One suggestion is to check the voicing on that particular note. It might be a little softer that the others around it, and the pianist is hitting that note a little harder to create a louder sound, this putting more strain on the string. " Wim, You are partially correct. When a string breaks at the agraffe or Capo, etc. it can be many things. The last thing I would fault is the playing, even tho I have known "musicians"(?) that could break strings at will. These knot heads usually did it to get the "Night Club Owner" to fix/tune the darned piano!<G> Or....simply because someone really pissed them off. The first things to look at are structural. If all appears to be o.k., then I'd check scale and hammers. Next regulation and then the possible "ham handed" player. I once had a 85 lb. female entertainer type that completely destroyed a Yamaha P22. Two reasons she did it: 1. she hated the gig and the piano! 2. because she could! The lady had "chops"!!! One of the main reasons these types of pianos self-destruct, is poor design, IMO. There seems to be the brunt of piano design, nowadays, is to make them more powerful. They try to do this by increasing the mass of the Sound board. Then, to get that moving they increase the mass of the bridges and greatly increase the tension! THEN, to add insult to injury, they put rock hard hammers on the damned piano to get it to overcome all the built in problems they put into the design! Stupid in my not so humble opinion. Then, they say it's a "paino". Bullpuckey! It's a PSO and nothling more. Any aural similarity to a real piano is purely coincidental! Lastly, we are asked to make it "sound" correct! Yeah, like that's going to happen! 1st most people of today don't have a clue of what a real piano is supposed to sound like. Why? Because the music they listen to is so distorted by the recording industry and the piano manufacturers. Even the top end pianos sound like crap, most of the time. They need someone, ( a miracle man, so to speak), like Andre to even make it slightly palatable. Tis' the "sound" of the times. Sigh!! That's the way I see it. (Definately why no one has ever asked me to design a piano.<G>) Regards, Joe Joe Garrett, R.P.T. Captain of the Tool Police Squares R I -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20110921/c2414045/attachment.htm>
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