<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-2"> <title>Bulletin - Factory Events</title> <style type="text/css">  </style> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" > <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" width="480"> <tr> <td width="480" align="center">Bulletin number: 2000-03, date:  18. 9. 2000 FACTORY  EVENTS <hr> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </div>    <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" cellspacing="1" width="480"> <tr> <td width="100%"> 100 Years Since the Start of Piano-Making in Jiříkov</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/jirikov.jpg"> The original factory in Jiříkov</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> On 15 September 2000 in the small town of Jiříkov in northern Bohemia on the boundary with Germany, there will be major celebrations of the hundredth anniversary of piano-making in a facility that is a component of Továrna na piana, a.s. - PETROF, s.r.o. (Piano Factory joint stock company - PETROF limited liability company). The Jiříkov operation makes various models of upright pianos for this largest piano manufacturer in Europe according to the selection offered by the PETROF firm on both domestic and foreign markets. Not only employees but also the largest customers from all over the world will take part in the celebrations. From 19 through 21 September 2000 the factory will be opened to the public, and visitors will be able to view an exposition of current products as well as several historical items. We hereby cordially invite all of you to Jiříkov, to the place of manufacture of such noble music musical instruments as are pianos. </center> source: Deníky Bohemia</td> </tr> <center> <tr> <td width="100%"> <hr> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </div>   <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" cellspacing="1" width="480"> <tr> <td width="472" colspan="2"> The Young Talent Lukáš Vondráček at Továrna na piana - PETROF</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="327"> On 15 August 2000 our factory was visited by the very talented young pianist Lukáš Vondráček and his family. Lukáš is only thirteen years old (born 21 October 1986 in Opava). He has been playing the piano since the age of two, and appeared in public for the first time when he was four. He has won first prize in many piano competitions including the Prague Junior Note, the competition in Košice, Amadeus in Brno, and the nationwide rounds of the competitions of music schools in Liberec and Pardubice. Since the 1999-2000 school year he has been a special student at the Arts Education  Department  of the  College of  Education  at </td> <td width="141"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vondrac.jpg" width="127" height="188"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="472" colspan="2"> Ostrava University. He also has regular consultations at the College of Music in Vienna. At the age of eight Lukáš recorded for Czech Radio and Czech Television. Two years later he gave a full-length recital, performed in the USA and England, and played the solo part in Mozart's "Coronation" Concerto in D major for piano and orchestra. At the age of eleven he issued his first compact disc. When he was twelve he played Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor with the orchestra of the Silesian Theater, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the Janáček Philharmonic of Ostrava. At the age of thirteen he gave an independent piano recital in Steinway Hall in New York, and late in 1999 he recorded his second compact disc. He has twelve concertos for piano and orchestra in his repertoire. He has played with important symphonic ensembles like the Janáček Philharmonic of Ostrava, the State Philharmonic of Brno, the North Bohemian Philharmonic of Teplice, the South Bohemian Philharmonic of České Budějovice, and the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic of Zlín. </td> </tr> </center> <tr> <td width="472" colspan="2"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vondrac1.jpg"> Lukáš Vondráček at Továrna na piana - PETROF during a test of a new concert grand piano</td> </tr> <center> <tr> <td width="472" colspan="2"> During his visit to the PETROF factory he tried out the latest model from the new generation of PETROF grand pianos, with which he was very satisfied. It was our pleasure to show our factory to Lukáš along with his charming sister and parents, so they could get an idea of how such an instrument is made and what an important role human work plays here. It is amazing to see how this young and successful pianist makes a concert grand sound and imprints a soul on it. We wish Lukáš much success in his musical career and will be glad to welcome him in the factory again sometime. </center> author: Zuzana Ceralová Petrofová<center></center></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="472" colspan="2"> <hr> </td> </tr> </table> </div>   <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" cellspacing="1" width="480"> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> At Petrof We Tune Pianos Precisely</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> Good tuning of upright and grand pianos is truly not a simple matter. If we look back into history, we find a need to define the standard for pitch in tuning. Based on ISO R16 recommendations and thanks in part to the efforts of Mr. Radek Malý and others, in December 1959 a Czechoslovak State Norm was approved mandating that musical instruments be produced such that they could be used in chamber combinations with a frequency 440 Hz for a. Until that time there was a lack of uniformity in this now-fundamental standard. For example producers of accordions and wind instruments used a different tuning. Even today we may encounter somewhat higher tuning in orchestras in the effort to produce a more brilliant sound in the strings. After definition of the standard the need arose for machines capable of achieving this standard and allowing calibration of tuning forks. In manufacturing pianos it is not enough to have tuners only with a frequency of 440 Hz, because during production pianos are first tuned somewhat higher so as to more easily balance the tension among strings, frame, and plate. Therefore a number of different variously-calibrated tuners is used.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum2.jpg" width="238" height="178"></td> <td width="50%"> For fifteen years now Petrof's frequency standard has been set by a Bruel Kjaer 1027 frequency generator, which allows calibrating tuners at 440 Hz with precision to a hundredth of a Hertz. The top-level precision and stability of this instrument allows us to use it even today, despite the fact that it is not the last word in fashionable equipment. In final tuning of an instrument a number   of   difficulties   must be  dealt </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> with. First, a piano is not tuned naturally as is for example a violin, but rather in a tempered system. In practice this means that no interval other than octaves is tuned with complete purity. The second difficulty is caused by inharmonicity of the strings. The stiffer a string is - i.e. the larger its diameter in relation to its length - the more striking this property becomes. Inharmonicity means that the overtones do not sound at precise multiples of the fundamental tone but somewhat higher. This property appears more at the extremes of the instrument's range. Thus actually not even the frequency ratios of octaves are tuned with complete purity. The frequency is increased more than by the mere multiple - the octaves are somewhat stretched. The stretching may be seen on a tuning-curve graph. For one type of instrument it is possible to try out a number of tuning curves, which has a certain affect on the feeling of the music produced.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum1.jpg" width="230" height="129"> An example of measured tuning curves</td> <td width="50%"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum7.jpg" width="230" height="110"> Approximation of a tuning curve of the Peterson tuner</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> The third problem is caused by the richness of a tone's spectrum. There are many various components in this spectrum - the basic harmonic components (which are not at precise multiples due to the stiffness of strings), pure doubles of these individual components resulting from axial stress of the bridge, lengthwise mode of vibration of the string with its higher partials, and all manner of mutual combination tones resulting from nonlinearities. In such a rich spectrum there will almost always be components that may be disturbing in combination with the components of a different tone. When we add that the pitch and spectral composition of a tone are not constant, but rather change as the tone fades, the legitimacy of this article's opening sentence must be clear to all. Fortunately nature created our sense of hearing rather imperfectly in some respects. Many of the above-mentioned properties of a piano's sound are either not perceived at all or heard only as richness in the color of a tone. It depends only on the tuner which traits he or she will support in final tuning based on experience and feeling, and which not. Precise spectral composition of a tone produced by a theoretically-perfect tuning machine would tend to interfere with this work. In pre-tuning, however, tuning machines provide a great relief and hasten work. The better an instrument is tuned in advance, the less work remains for the artistic tuner, who can concentrate more on achieving his or her sound ideal. In the 1950s - a period burdened by embargoes - "Stroboconn" machines were imported to the Czech Socialist Republic from Indiana in the U.S.A., as one of the first machines that allowed both adherence to the standard and the possibility of tracing the temperament and the tuning curve. The principle of this electrode apparatus is interesting.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%"><img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum5.jpg"></td> <td width="50%"> A microphone registers the sound of a tone. A discharge lamp flashes in the rhythm of the tone's frequency, illuminating twelve stroboscopic discs from behind. The disks are divided into translucent and opaque (black) segments. They all spin at a speed determined by the basic setting of the motor (in cents) and gears. The frequency of the machine is set by an electro-mechanical oscillator with a tuner. Tuning is accomplished when the changes in brightness of the discharge lamp and changes in translucence determined by the spinning of the discs are synchronized. The result is a seeming slowing of the motion of the discs, with complete stoppage when the frequencies  agree.  This  machine not  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> only allows precise tuning of a given tone but to a certain extent allows tracing inharmonicity of several higher overtones of the given tone. In this it is far superior to all common tuning machines and its principle of construction was superceded only forty years later by digital processing of a signal. Our research department owns such a machine that still functions. The Stroboconn was followed by many other types of tuning machines. Among the most interesting is certainly the Yamaha Tuning Scope Model PT4, which is simpler in construction than the Stroboconn and smaller.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum3.jpg" width="230" height="127"></td> <td width="50%"> This type of tuning machine from the 1970s, in contrast with the Stroboconn, does not allow observing the frequency of individual harmonics of a tone. The range of tones that can be registered is from 110 Hz, i.e. great A, where one band moves on the oscilloscopic screen,   up  to  3.200, which  is to say</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> about six octaves. A major disadvantage of all analog tuning machines lies in the changes of tuning with temperature and age. An advantage of this tuning machine is its volume range of ca. 90 decibels for the input signal for the middle range. A representative of the generation of tuning machines from the 1980s is the now rather well-known and still-used Korg AT12 Autochromatic Tuner. Here the oscillator is of crystal and thus essentially stable. The machine can be run from a battery, so it is easily portable. To design a tuning machine that would maintain synchronization for such a broad range of frequencies and dynamics as required by pianos, however, was still beyond the ability of technicians ten years ago. The lowest tone that can be registered on this tuning machine is great D. It does not allow the tuning curve to be set. Interesting is the possibility of aural output with adjustable volume, allowing blind persons to tune by comparison. With the massive development of electronics technology even the technical barrier of the range of a tuning machine has been overcome, so that today there are much cheaper tuning machines than the above-mentioned Korg that can capture the entire pitch range of a piano. An example is the Seiko 1100 tuner. This is a simple machine that does not allow setting tuning curves, but for needs of tuning pianos during production it is fully sufficient.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum4.jpg" width="220" height="176"></td> <td width="50%"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum10.jpg" width="220" height="121"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> A new generation of Stroboconn tuners is now being manufactured by the successor to this firm - Peterson Tuners. Model SC5000 is evidence of the technical affinity to the Stroboconn.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%"><img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum8.jpg" width="220" height="105"></td> <td width="50%"><img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum6.jpg" width="225" height="117"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> At this year's trade fair in Frankfurt the Peterson firm displayed an Autostrobe 490 Stretch Tuner, which allows for example pre-setting ten types of temperament (equal, Pythagorean, Werckmeister, Kirnberger, and others). PETROF instruments use only standard equal temperament, which we achieve by either a small or a large circuit of tempering. Equal temperament represents one extreme of the compromise between pure tuning and the possibility of playing in all keys. It has been in use since the time of J.S. Bach. Equal temperament has the advantage of standardization. Its disadvantage is that not even one interval is tuned with complete purity. For example in using a piano specially for Baroque music, according to experts of the AMU it is more suitable to use the non-equal Werckmeister temperament, developed around 1660. The Peterson 490ST tuner allows use of other temperaments, suitable for an instrument that is to be played in combination with another instrument tempered differently (as when a piano plays with a guitar), according to the wish of particular customers. It also allows presetting thirty-one methods of stretching octaves (tuning curves). The preset tuning curves are chosen from eight non-erasable types according to the size of the instrument. The computer revolution is giving us new possibilities in tuning techniques. The first example at PETROF is the RCT program by Dean Reyburn. This software is used by a computer with a sound card for registering the tone of a piano, which is then subjected to analysis. In principle this is a relatively sophisticated frequency-analyzer. Surprisingly, the visual output of the tuner on the screen is analogous to the spinning disc with opaque segments as with the old Stroboconn. The program has many pre-chosen tuning curves, is capable of evaluating inharmonicity of individual overtones, etc.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%"> <img border="0" src="../../../images/2000-03/vyzkum9.jpg" width="220" height="161"></td> <td width="50%"> There have been theoretical speculations as to the possibility of replacing professional piano tuners with trained workers using this equipment, but this is not realistic for at least several reasons: 1. The program does not take into consideration subjective perception of a tone's pitch in combination with its color. Here the tuner's personal feeling remains an indispensable factor.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> 2. The program has several disadvantages. For example it does not take into consideration at all the fact that the frequency of a tone may change significantly as it fades. 3. At least half the skill of a tuner lies in mastery of use of the tuning wrench. 4. Tuning "via the eye, which hears via the computer" is substantially slower than tuning by ear. For these reasons, although the program can be used for objective checking of a tuner's work, use in production for final tuning is very problematic. Let us hope that the assets of PETROF will continue to lie more in good human tuners than in good computers and software. Titles of firms, products, and programs used in this article may be trademarks of their owners. Sources: - W.V. McFerrin. The Piano - Its Acoustics. U.S.A.: Tuners' Supply Company, 1972. - Antonín Špelda. Hudební akustika (Musical Acoustics). Prague: SPN, 1976. </center> author: Jan Skala<center></center></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> <hr> </td> </tr> </table> </div>   <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" cellspacing="1" width="480"> <tr> <td width="100%"> Renovation as Part of Servicing</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> We should like to inform everyone that on 1 September 2000 a renovation workshop was established as part of the servicing center. The purposes of this facility will be above all: -to learn as quickly as possible to install electronic equipment in our instruments (quiet piano, disc piano, etc.), and - to repair older upright and grand pianos. The actual renovation of old instruments (predominantly with Viennese mechanism) is being planned; the servicing department will provide current reports in this matter. </center> author: Jan Šváb<center></center></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> <hr> </td> </tr> </table> </div>   <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" cellspacing="1" width="480"> <tr> <td width="100%"> We Recall Old Piano-Makers</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> In my reminiscences I have wandered again into the time of my youth, when I came to a different and for me completely new world - manufacture of upright and grand pianos. This was preceded by my student years, then years of military service with a shovel, barracks, a uniform, and discipline. And suddenly something completely different: production halls, people at work tables and pianos, offices, storage rooms, an abundance of wood, half-finished products, and also music, above all piano music. In 1954 I came to Hradec Králové. My lot was work in the national enterprise Továrna na piana (Piano Factory). A lawyer after two years of the army, without practice, only with a firm will to begin working and be useful to those who needed my help. I came to the complex on Škroupova street known as HZ, which housed production of upright pianos and also the headquarters of the enterprise. That was important, because workrooms and offices were interspersed. Manual laborers and office workers were close to each other. They met each other daily in hallways, in the dining room, and everywhere in the same building. For a novice this was a great advantage. I could become familiar not only with office work but with the work of cabinet-makers, painters, voicers, finishing workers, tuners, and many others. Who wouldn't be curious to meet new people and encounter new things? And I kept a basic idea always in mind: if I was to work in this enterprise, I must know at least roughly what was made here and how. But now to those piano makers. Almost fifty years later I can still picture them in their typical white aprons or overalls, mostly without jackets or even without shirts - everywhere it was quite warm because of the wood, glue, and drying of surface treatments. And the offices where I worked were closest to the finishing work: fine adjustments, final checking, voicing, tuning, final surface treatment, and everything associated therewith. I encountered these people daily. I visited their work rooms to see how they worked, how they used tools, and what the result of their work was. I should like to mention several names. Master Ludvík Vaněk Sr., who supervised finishing work. Narcis Kapoun, I think a final checker, always in a white apron. Láďa Mládek, a comedian who never failed to entertain us. The Štefec brothers who worked on final surface treatment of upright piano cases. Bohouš Uher, whose brother was later a minister in the government. Miloslav Kalista, a tuner with weak vision whose son also devoted himself to the piano-making profession. Václav Pavlík, tuner, a member of the next generation also in our field. And among the men a single girl - Anička Černá, a gifted pianist who for political reasons was not allowed to continue in her studies. She played the piano beautifully, which was quite unusual in the work rooms. And so after working hours I passed from the office to the work room and listened to Beethoven sonatas, Chopin waltzes, and many other pieces. This was a balm to my soul! And when she later left Hradec I missed these experiences a lot. Another old piano maker was Mr. Drejnar Sr., a member of the Red Army in Russia who fought on the side of the Bolsheviks during the October revolution and told of mountains of pianos he saw in Russia because they were being moved out of apartments and homes of the defeated aristocracy. I should also like to mention Karel Marha, Sr., former owner of the piano firm, who after its dissolution worked in the enterprise as technical inspector and later as a piano repairer. I also recall Mr. Krčmář, who despite his visual handicap was an excellent expert on production. Then there was Mr. Novák, an excellent tuner and serviceman, one of the first who collaborated with outstanding Czech pianists in tone tests of new grand pianos and in concert activities. And after him came Mr. Červinka, also a master tuner and voicer collaborating with the artistic world. I have mentioned a few names that remain in my memory. After so many years I cannot recall everyone I knew at the time - I hope the reader will forgive me. Time marches on and thus even an old lawyer has a lot of memories! Perhaps these recollections will offer something positive and instructive to people involved in piano production today as well. After all, the old craft is our great tradition, even if a few things have changed in production. We must be aware that we have something to build on! I write these lines also as my modest and somewhat tardy contribution to celebrations of the anniversary when the PETROF firm celebrated 135 years since its founding in Hradec Králové. </center> author: Václav Holas</td> </tr> <center> <tr> <td width="100%"> <hr> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </div>   </body> </html>