Showing posts with label New pianos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New pianos. Show all posts

Saturday 30 August 2014

New Pianos

Surely, buying a new piano should to be straightforward enough, shouldn't it? As there are not so many piano shops around, if you wish to compare prices or try pianos in more than one shop, your hunt for a new piano will mean a good deal of travelling.

A piano can seem perfect in the shop, but at home in your music room, the sound hardens into a strident, in-your-face tone which is difficult to control and hard on the ears. Second thoughts, regret and disappointment are not easy to overcome when you have bought an expensive piano. Surely a piano costing so much should be satisfactory from Day One!  

It is not uncommon, as a technician, to be called in to deal with a brand new, expensive and newly-delivered piano that is terribly out of tune and/or the action is very heavy and difficult to play. Promises that the action would loosen up or the tone would mellow after being played for a while, prove to be disappointingly empty. The owner is very unhappy - and understandibly cross that there is a problem at all!

These issues can all be sorted but not in about 10 minutes. It is not rare to find a brand new piano which is so heavy to play the action needs re-centring. Frequently one finds keys that are sluggish, hammer-felts that are as hard as nails, notes going wildly out of tune or pedals that squeak every time they are pressed down. 

I have a great deal of sympathy for New-Piano-Buyers who feel so let down by their new piano. Piano brochures - without exception, make bold claims about the quality and care of manufacture. But sadly, too often, modern pianos never quite live up to expectations. 

In an ideal world, all pianos would be ready and 'match fit' long before it is delivered to the home of an excited pianist who has invested their hard-earned money in their dream piano. 

Perhaps 50 - 60% of new piano owners would say they are totally satisfied with their purchase. Possibly, the tuner/technician's satisfaction rate would be rather less, but the reality is that if brochures were written by the purchaser there would be less use of extravagant superlatives to describe the piano. 

Buyers should insist on standards that match the price they pay for a piano. One expects the quality of a cheap piano to match its low price. Equally, the quality of an expensive piano ought to be at least as high as the price - certainly, no lower!


Tuner's Journal

©
Pianology

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Piano-making in UK.

Once again the less-than-perfect state of new pianos has been highlighted this week. This week, I have seen or worked on 4 pianos not yet 2 years old that have needed extra technical attention before they can be considered satisfactory. Nobody likes hearing the same old moan time and time again, but the customer has to live with the reality of their choice of piano. Most of these keen pianists are paying good money and are at a loss to understand why their pianos are not as good as was expected.

I have been reading Alastair Laurence's book Five London Piano Makers, and I am sure I have detected in the book, hints of a similar mood of disappointment. He says in his introduction, "The near total collapse of British piano making means that there seems to be little likelihood of those fascinating centres of musical workmanship - the small piano factories - ever being seen again on these shores."

Anyone who has worked in a piano workshop will know something of the atmosphere of constant and affectionate labour over the many apparently lifeless components of a piano. Workers feel a strange and invisible force urging them towards the later stages of repair work - that stage when the piano is touched with the magic of creativity and is now finished! Maybe in other professions, something of the same drive is at work, but wherever there are pianos and music, the mixture is intoxicating.

The fact that there are fewer 'centres of musical workmanship' in the UK is partly due to the poor standard of piano produced during the late 1970s. Piano makers were now competing with imported pianos from the far east which, frankly, were better. Cost cutting meant, the fine finishing of the pianos was cut to a minimum, thus bringing forward the eventual demise of the industry.

Alas, many of the cheaper imported pianos are as less-than-perfect as was the case in the UK in the late 1970s. The best we can do is to make good what we can and hope that one day finesse, better reliability and the positive feedback that should follow a piano purchase will be rather more common than it is today. Let us hope that the tide of piano-making doldrums might be on the turn! 

Whether what remains of the piano industry in the UK can get its act together strongly enough to meet the challenge remains to be seen. I share Alastair Laurence's finishing word of hope: "With luck, a new, younger generation of piano makers here will help to ensure the survival of piano-making skills in Britain throughout the twenty-first century." 

We have work to do!


The Piano World

© Steve Burden
Pianology
  

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Broadwood Grand Pianos

Broadwood Pianos have been around since 1728. Not many examples of an 1860s Broadwood piano survive to this day, and even fewer of these are in good working order today. When new these pianos were stunning examples of high-quality, English craftsmanship. A hundred and fifty years takes quite a toll on a piano and ordinarily, I am not a fan of these relics of the 19th century but it is refreshing to be surprised by good examples when they are met with. I have come across 2 such pianos that deserve mention. 

1980s Broadwood Letterhead
One of the pianos must have been at least 7' 6" long - if you sat at the keyboard and squinted a little, you could just about make out the far end of the piano! I did not expect it to be up to pitch, but it was only a quarter-tone flat. The strings had been replaced at some point but the wrest pins were still the old, oblong ones that were fitted when new. One of the pins in the bi-chord section of the bass strings had snapped off, so instead of two strings on that note, there was only one.

The hammers had been recovered, but not terribly well - the high treble hammers jammed against the front edge of the wrest plank. Not too much of a problem for most players, but we fussy old tuners like all the notes to work! 

The rich colours of its rosewood case, made it a very fine-looking piece of furniture. The flat wooden pedals always look odd to modern eyes but at least they are the 'real thing' - if they had ever been replaced with modern pedals, it would no longer look the part.

The ivory keys were still white and still had a shine to them. Some were worn thin in the middle of the playing surface, but this is not surprising after more than a century of use. So often, the original ivories are yellowed with age, and more often than not a few of the originals have been replaced with ill-fitting substitutes.

So there it was, this remarkable old piano, in a charmingly renovated house that was even older than the piano, - a perfect setting for an instrument so well-preserved. The fascinating thing is that after 150 years, this piano is still regularly played, loved and appreciated. John Braodwood & Sons certainly knew how to build a piano that would last! 

The second piano is another grand - the serial number of this piano does not fit neatly into any of the categories listed in the Pierce's Atlas, but I reckon it must have been made about 1860. 

The case, for its age, is stunning - the rich Rosewood veneer still boasting the bold stripes of the grain. The polish has been preserved to the point that most would not think it in need of any particular attention.

But from a tuner's point of view, the most remarkable thing is that it is only a little flat in pitch - (I believe when this piano was built, the standard pitch was a little lower than A 440.) Over the years, 2 bass strings have been replaced, and couple of treble strings - apart from these, the strings are those fitted when new! A few treble strings are absent. The original oblong tuning pins still holding firmly in the original wrest plank! 

The piano is regularly used to accompany singers, occasionally for concerts but is always appreciated by pianists and audiences alike. Live music is still a wonderful social phenomenon that dates back to long before this piano was made.

The action is one of the odd incarnations of Broadwood's own design but still playing acceptably and capable of expression and colour. The tone is the one big give-away, but even here, the sound is extremely good for its type.

These grand old pianos are from a time when serious craftsmen built everything to last, a time when gentleman tuners wore hats. If I had a hat, I would take it from my head as a mark of respect, a salute to the beauty of  esteemed craftsmanship. These pianos are works of the piano-maker's art.   

©

Sunday 3 June 2012

Piano Brochures

Brochures about New Pianos are littered with adjectives that imply a superiority of tone, craftsmanship, build quality, choice of materials, the range of models... on and on!

The unfortunate would-be buyer, has to learn a sort of code before coming close to making a decision. Then, when the piano is delivered, the tuner often has to 'iron out' the niggles and tweak the odd misbehaving notes before the customer feels he has made the right choice.

The most difficult part about using words and pictures to describe a piano, is that every piano is so different. Tastes are different. The process of choosing a particular piano is a deeply personal thing. Any attempt to narrow the decision down to a particular piano by simply reading a brochure, is doomed to meet with disappointment.

In a glossy brochure, references made to the piano maker's art, is little more than part of the overall intention to impress the reader. What does it really mean? Great skill and patience are essential to build a piano but building a piano is also an art. Craft, experience and a profound love of the work are the special ingredients needed to produce that spark of inspiration for the piano buyer. 

What buyers really need to know is that their choice will match their expectations.

As a tuner, I come across many new pianos. Sadly only a few of them get my 'thumbs-up' vote. This is not because I do not like new pianos, but because I am often disappointed myself with the condition of the piano when I get to tune it in the customer's house.

If I were spending serious money on a piano, I would feel justified in having high expectations - Isn't that what the brochures are trying inspire in the buyer? 

A while ago, a customer who bought a top name 'silent' piano, to replace a piano that was rather old and definitely inferior, said she regretted ever buying the new one! Why? Because it was not what she led to believe it was. This is not a customer who will go about saying she was 'completely satisfied' with the piano. 

Another customer bought a high-end and expensive piano. After the free tuning, she was less than overwhelmed with it - only to be told by the tuner/technician that she was being too fussy! 

Piano makers seem not to care about their pianos once in the hands of the retailer. Pianists are the buyers and users of pianos - if the goods supplied are poor, the demand will soon drain away. In the Piano Trade, we have a lot of work to do!  

The Piano World

© Steve Burden