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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Well I was told by a technician who =
rebuilds
vintage pianos to check inside the piano to see if it is stamped =
somewhere a435,
and it is. He is the one that gave me most of the information =
about the
history of pianos being tuned at a435 in the late 1800's to early =
1900's.
So I posted to ask if any of you knew about this. In the mean time =
I went
online and checked it out. I found the technician I talked to was
correct. Another tech looked at the piano and agreed it was made =
to be at
a435, it is clearly marked in the piano, but with new strings could be =
brought
up to a440 plus needs new treble bridge. Plus he found two hair =
line
cracks in the soundboard. He told me it being so old of a =
piano
isn't worth fulling with. I found other websites talking about the =
history
of pitch. I just typed in the search bar a435 and a bunch of sites =
came
up. I know nothing about orchestras, except what I read
online. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The piano was bought for a =
beginner
student. Obviously not the best piano for a new student. From what =
information I have gathered from all of you it will take too much money =
to fix
it up and then who knows what will go next in it. The =
technician who
looked at the piano before it was purchased said it was in =
very good
condition, needed a set of damper felts, set of bridle straps, a hammer
replaced, and a new keybed and a tuning. He did the repairs =
listed
and then the tuning. He said it will need 2 tunings =
a year
and it should last another generation. Obviously he was very =
wrong.
Because he was called out the next day because a ringing sound was being =
heard
in one of the keys. He said it had hairline cracks in the treble bridge =
and
wanted to do an Epoxy repair. I posted for the first time on this =
site to
find out about such a repair. I am so glad I did. HE has =
never done
an epoxy repair but wanted to try it for the first time on my =
piano. After
all the advice I got from you all I called and told him no thank =
you. That
is when he told me he knew about the cracks in the soundboard. I =
guess he
forgot he didn't share that with me. That is when I decided to =
call out
another tech to get a second opinion. The second tech told me =
about
the cracks in the soundboard and he saw the a435 pitch marking and he =
saw the
cracks in the treble bridge. So yea, I thought I was doing the =
right thing
having a tech look at it before I bought it. But I guess I didn't =
pick the
right tech. So I have stupid written across my
forehead. Thank you all, you have been a great help to =
me in
trying to decide what to do with this piano. The piano is =
beautiful on the
outside but it is 115 years old. Now I am trying to figure =
out which
brand of piano to buy for my daughter. They all cost soo much =
brand
new. I am not brave enough to go with a used one again. =
After
all the stuff I have read I am beginning to think she should just stick =
with
guitar. I got so burned on a used piano.</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; =
BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: =
black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=custos3@comcast.net =
href="mailto:custos3@comcast.net">Israel
Stein</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A =
title=pianotech@ptg.org
href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, November 23, =
2005 10:52
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> A=435</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>At 11:00 AM 11/21/2005, you wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=cite cite="" type="cite">I wrote right after =
that I meant
a435. I did a typo in my first email. Sorry. It is =
written
inside the piano on the medal plate beside the Sohmer symbol. =
This is
a piano made back in 1890. I knew to check because =
a
gentleman I called who rebuilds pianos told me to check inside to =
see if it
was written or engraved, "A435" and it was. I did a =
history
search and most composers including Chopin composed songs in a 435
pitch. It was around the time of WW2 that the 440 became =
universally
accepted. Before that 435 was most common but there was other =
pitches that
were accepted as well. <A
=
href="http://www.uk-piano.org/history/pitch.html">www.uk-piano.org/hist=
ory/pitch.html</A>
Check out this website.</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>You might want to do some =
more
thorough research than a web search - and examine the veracity of your =
sources. For example, the website you cite is no authority - just a =
fellow who
posted some commonly available information who doesn't even claim to =
for it be
complete. It's an interesting collection of factoids - not conclusive
evidence. <BR><BR>There is very little evidence that any pitch was =
"most
common" at any time before WW-I or maybe even II. One bit of evidence =
suggests
that in the mid 1860's there were 5 different pitch standards in the =
city of
Paris alone - 3 at the 3 different opera houses, one used by the =
Church and
one by the military bands. A-=435 was an unsuccessful attempt to =
agree on a
common "Concert" pitch, and no such agreement was achieved even on the =
concert
stage - never mind in common practice. As to how common A=435 became =
is open
to conjecture. (For that matter, it is rather questionable if A=440 =
today is
very widely accepted on the concert stage - many wind instruments are =
being
manufactured at higher pitches these days, and so pitch in orchestral =
contexts
is being forced upward. We were forced to tune our concert instruments =
at San
Francisco State University at A=441+ so that the wind players could =
tune to
them...).<BR><BR>As for your claims about Chopin and "most composers" =
writing
songs in A=435 - I would love to see some of those "songs" Chopin =
wrote. I'm
not aware of any... Most of his output - at least as a mature =
composer -
was for piano solo, where pitch made no difference. And since his =
favorite
pianos were Pleyels, and your source cites Pleyel's pitch in 1836 at =
A=446 -
what gives? Did they drop their pitch just for him? Or did they drop =
it by 11
CPS sometime before 1849? Does the data even mean anything - did they =
only use
that one pitch, or were they all over the place, and the other tuning =
forks
were never found? See the perils of speculating about pitch in the =
19th
century?<BR><BR>Really, the question of pitch at various times is much =
more
complicated than the oversimplifications you will find on websites. =
The push
for standardizing pitch doesn't really happen until after the =
development of
rail travel (and increased concert touring) all over Europe - 2nd half =
of the
19th century - and the problems that instrumentalists in various =
locations had
tuning to each other. Even the evidence from surviving tuning forks is =
suspect
- how do we know these were the rule rather than the exception, the =
common
practice rather than the one-time experiment? We don't... And I =
suspect that
piano companies recommending specific pitches were strictly =
promotional - to
show that they are "with it" on the latest trends, not as any result =
of
specific scale or structural design features. Theirs were =
"seat-of-the-pants"
trial-and-error design methods - not precisely calculated =
engineering...
<BR><BR>Israel Stein<BR><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>