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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial id="role_document"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>“They don’t
make pianofortes anymore, they just make fortes”</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Paraphrased remark attributed to Dale
Erwin’s father that has always stuck with me.</span></font></p>
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10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Cellist to Pianist:
“Can’t you play any softer”</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Pianist: “Well,
actually…no, I can’t”</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Conversation overheard at a rehearsal of
the Brahms B Major Trio:</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Tone is everything in piano work, in my
view. The rest is secondary, or simply mechanical. There’s
no precise language for it like Alizarin Crimson or burnt garlic, and so it’s
difficult to talk about with any assurance that your experience is the same as
mine. We can only assume that the words we choose describe the sound that
I think you might be hearing—if you are. In spite of how my views
have been misrepresented, I am really quite open about tone. There are a
broad range of possibilities and a variety of tastes to go with them. I
have customers who love their Yamahas, the bright and powerfully percussive
tone they offer and those who wouldn’t be caught dead playing one for the
same reasons. I have Steinway customers who long for that dark, warm,
singing tone that they recall from their childhood and others whose Steinways
simply can’t be made bright enough or loud enough. When it comes to
addressing the needs of a particular piano or customer preferences, we need to
be open to what the piano can deliver and what the customer wants. And I
am. “Whatever you want” is my mantra when it comes to
customer work, even if I wouldn’t choose it myself. When rebuilding
a piano with original materials I always engage customers in a discussion about
tone, what they like, or don’t like, how I can make the piano to best
suit their tastes. If they want something that will be difficult to
achieve with a given piano, I tell them. I might even go so far as to say
that if that’s what they want, they own the wrong piano. It can
happen. Each piano’s design pushes its tonal signature in one
direction or the other. Scale design, soundboard design and health, rim
structure, plate design, all contribute to the direction in which the piano can
comfortably be pushed. Try to make it into something it’s not and
you end up with a mediocre result at best (a structural disaster at worst).
Will the customer be happy anyway? They might. It’s
likely that whatever you do to a piano that is on the brink of disintegration
will be an improvement. Sometimes we have to be content to do
that—and certainly I have. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>When working with old and tired
soundboards, we must (in today’s parlance) accept them for what they are.
Trying to get them to perform as if they were new and expecting the same
type of tone generally leads to a disappointing result. Accepting the
structural and thereby tonal changes that occur with old boards allows us, if
we listen carefully, to perhaps modify our scale design, pick a more suitable
hammer now than the original and/or modify our voicing strategy to make the best
of what the board still has to offer. That can lead to a very acceptable,
even beautiful result. But it will be different from the original no
matter what we do and the sooner we accept that, the better off we are.
We can try and force our own tastes onto the piano but, if we are honest, only
in so far as the piano’s design or condition allows. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>When it comes to building a piano from the
ground up, however, or reengineering a scale and soundboard, then we are
absolved of all previous commitments and we have real choices that we can make
(existing plate considerations notwithstanding). High, medium or low
tension scales are where things start. From the low tension scales of </span></font><font
size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>Estonia</span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> to the high tension
scales characterized by many Japanese pianos, each one will have their own
soundboard requirements, hammer requirements and accompanying tonal
character. I happen to like low tension sound (but not too low) better
than high tension sound, so left to my own devices I would chose a platform
that supports that preference. If tonal expectations of a customer were
better associated with a high tension scale, however, then, given the means, I
would be fine to build that as well. Either way, I would expect that design
differences would produce differences in tonal character (let’s put the
wart issue aside for now) and that accompanying hammer requirements as well as
voicing requirements would also be different. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>In summary, each scale and soundboard
assembly pushes the instrument in a particular direction. While there is
always a range of possibilities within any particular design, each design does
carry its own tonal bias. As piano technicians, trying to bring out the
best in each piano we come across, we hear those differences intuitively.
We adjust our expectations according to each instrument and each instrument
becomes our temporary standard for the possibilities of good tone. If we
find something that appeals to us we tend to latch onto it and carry it around as
our model. But that can hurt as well as help us. It helps us by giving
us a higher standard for each piano we encounter. It hurts us in that the
expectations we carry forward are not always realistic—or desirable—for
the next instrument and we can end up trying to force the piano toward our
ideal with a poorer result than if we’d been open to what the piano
really had to offer in the first place. Power, brightness,
sustain, clarity, warmth, richness, dynamic range: in a piano we don’t
get to simply opt for the maximum amount of each. They all exist in a multi-dimensional
continuum in which you sometimes trade one for another in a never ending
balancing act achieved both by design and execution. There are, no doubt,
many acceptable formulas within that continuum dictated by a variety of
factors, not the least of which is just exactly what music is being played.
We should probably accept that in so far as there are a variety of tonal formulas
as well as musical requirements, no single piano (or treatment) will be perfect
for all types of music, players, audiences or technicians. So when given
the opportunity, why not be faithful to ourselves? Vive la difference! </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
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10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
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<p><font size=2 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
color:navy'>David Love<br>
davidlovepianos@comcast.net<br>
www.davidlovepianos.com</span></font><font color=navy><span style='color:navy'>
</span></font></p>
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