<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">   Delwin D Fandrich wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE><style></style>   <blockquote dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000080 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <div style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----</div> <div style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black">From: <a href="mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no" title="rbrekne@broadpark.no">Richard Brekne</a></div> <div style="FONT: 10pt arial">To: <a href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org" title="pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</a></div> <div style="FONT: 10pt arial">Sent: September 21, 2001 12:13 AM</div> <div style="FONT: 10pt arial">Subject: Re: 1 string, 2 strings, 3 strings or more</div>   Well... here (in this scaling issue) you seem to think more like the technician / engineer... and play up all those incidents of where your technical insights coincide with comments you hear from musicians.... and you apparently include ..what ... all pianists ?? Re read your lines if you will.. I include those musicians with which I have had experience. I can't speak for any others.     <blockquote>>>Depends on whether or not those defects of character are audibly >>offensive to the musician. If they are I see no reason for it to carry on >>for another 100 years offending the very folks it's supposed to be >>pleasing when a new bridge(s) and some revised scaling can solve >>most of the problem.</blockquote> This was why I asked for clarification you see. No, I don't see.</blockquote> </blockquote> Well, what can I say... er... uhhhh... most people I meet seem to report  a more varied experience. <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <blockquote dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000080 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">  What musicians are we talking about? As I said above; those with which I had experience.</blockquote> </blockquote> All of them too..... I am very suprised. We obvioiusly have very different experiences in dealing with musicians. I find it to in general be the exception to  find two that very much in aggreement about any particular instrument... you seem to find musicians opinions to be much more homogenous about instruments. Interesting.   <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <blockquote dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000080 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">  And in the Petrof thread you made the point that perhaps we should not think like technicians so much.... (read throw away all that technical insight) and hear what pianists have to say. Now if I was to do that full out.... Petrofs or not... I would have so many conflicting ideas swimming around in my head it would ridiculous. (grin.. not that I don't already). Seems to me like the situation is reversed now. Seems like this time around it is you who are defining what is a "good piano" in terms of what is technically sound. That you get some number of musicians to agree with any subjective assessment shouldn't suprise anyone. Or what ? Does it come as a surprise to you that technically sound pianos are also pianos that sound good? The reason I started looking at the design of pianos in the first place was because my clients--musicians--were complaining about the tonal performance of their highly regarded S&S pianos. And I started thinking about the differences between reputation and performance. The two are quite unrelated, you know. Also unrelated are selling price and performance. And country of origin and performance. And a few other things we've come to accept as gospel in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The things that are related are good design and good performance.</blockquote> </blockquote> Here I am in disagreement with the most of what you say. I do not aggree that performance is not related to price, or where instruments are made from. My clients.... musicians.... in general think Steinways have the best sound and performance around... tho they often wince at the price tag, and just about all of them have a different idea of how they are to be voiced or just how the touch is supposed to feel.   <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <blockquote dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000080 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">  <blockquote TYPE="CITE">  > Heck... lots of folks think the Steinway O is a horribly scaled piano... >and by some standards perhaps this is so... but then there are folks who >just love this S&S model. And we are often asked to improve things for the former and we are generally not asked to improve things for the latter. It's really the owners/musicians choice.</blockquote> Sorry, you lost me here... what former and latter are we talking about... I referred to the Steinway O only in that paragraph...But if you meant that you are asked often to improve the Steinway, and not the Petrof... well heck... I wouldn't pump a lot of money into a Petrof either. Then you get lost easily. Actually I dont... it was a fair and politely put question....   Obviously, if an owner is actually happy with his/her Model O they are not going to come to us to have it redesigned and remanufactured. And, I wouldn't want them to. I'd send them elsewhere, there are lots of really good rebuilders over here who do great, traditional rebuilding work. We work with the folks who are unhappy with the performance of their Model O's. What is it about this that is so hard to understand? ' Nothing... when you put it that way. Its nicely qualified... and actually answers my querry quite nicely.  So, you have a well-publicized contempt for Petrof pianos but that doesn't mean everyone else in the music world must share that contempt. Some people actually like the way they sound, at least they seem to prefer it to the hard, linear sound typical of many modern pianos that you would probably consider to be superior instruments.  There you go putting words and meanings in other peoples mouths for them again. I have no such well-publicized contempt for Petrofs at all. And anyone who has bothered to read past their own prejudice will have noted that I have pointed out both pro and con sides of Petrofs. That I refuse to turn a blind eye to repetive problem areas with Petrofs is another matter. And neither is the fact that I refuse to rate them right up there with the best the piano world has to offer. Further I personally like the general sound of Petrofs, as I have stated in my so called well publicized opinions time and time again. And I hardly see that it has anywhere been shown that people buy these pianos because they like the sound better then your above personal assesment  "typical of many modern pianos"    Not everyone can afford a Steinway and sometimes even those poor folks would like to have their pianos remanufactured even if--based solely on the name glued to the fallboard--they are pathetic excuses for musical instruments. And so, while a large part of our work is on S&S pianos, quite a lot is also on pianos that many technicians would consider to be inferior instruments. It doesn't matter to me. The end performance is what is important to me, not the name on the fallboard.  er.... ok... I dont see where I got into this asset of things... heck you were on about the scaling of instruments, and seem to set up a rather technical definition about what constituted a good scale or not... I simply didnt see how this lined up with your nicely made point about being a little less technically minded and a little more musically minded about such things.... and now we are off on some wild tangent and probably going to get into some stupid argument again... and again over nothing... I dont gid....     **********      And as for justification for improving a Steinway.. that seems typical enough for high performance products. You see that all the time in any branch... and folks what want this kind of customization seem to know enough to separate a Porsche from a Polskie Fiat.... tho you do find the occasional lotto millionare....:) and everyone knows they are different then normal millionares.. I don't consider the Model O--or several other S&S models, for that--to be a 'high performance' piano. At least not in its original form. I've encountered quite a few off-brand pianos (pianos I rather suspect from your expressed attitude you would hold in some contempt) with considerably better performance potential than the Model O can deliver on its best day. We work on them all and give them the same level of effort and work. Well, I could say something like "Your well publicized contempt for Steinway has been a matter of record for sometime. How do you like it eh ?".... but I wont.   So what's your point? Never mind Del. Its certainly not worth getting into an argument about. Del</blockquote> </blockquote> I drop this before it gets out of hand. -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. Bergen, Norway <A HREF="mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no">mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no</A>   </body> </html>