There are 2 books I’ve been reading lately, one new and one not so new. The Voice of the Piano by Andre Oorebeek is a welcome addition to the sparse list of books on piano technology. This book is a very clear and thorough examination of the process of high end piano voicing, which concentrates (but is not limited to) manipulating the shape and density of the felt of piano hammers. Oorebeek brings some light to an area that has traditionally been considered a black art, mainly because it is so hard to talk about. Even with his clear description of techniques, it really doesn’t mean anything if you can’t hear the progress and results. However it holds a lot for experienced technicians as well as piano lovers who are interested in their instruments. Next, to be clear, I really do read this kind of stuff. Virgil Smith has long

My recent travels have taken me to a well known retailer in the East and a well known university in, well, the US.  Both are staffed by  serious piano people and to me, both represent a problem this industry is facing. They both are basically sending the message that new piano manufacturers have little value. In the case of the retailer, they are emphasizing their very idiosyncratic approach to rebuilding, essentially sending the message that the best piano is an old Steinway. To be clear, they are not a Bosendorfer dealer and another high end European maker ended their relationship with them recently. In the case of the University, they are an active rebuilding shop focusing on rebuilding a motley but carefully selected collection of rather worn out pianos. The rebuilds are high quality, done by very serious people. Both of these organizations have specific, carefully thought out reasons to

I’m a pretty good long distance driver and took some long drives in June and July. First I drove to Toronto and back for a weekend Canadian Piano Technicians meeting. About a week later I drove to visit Andre Bolduc in Montreal. That drive is particularly beautiful, going through wonderful forests in Upstate New York and passing by Lake George. My evening in Lake George was about as perfect summer evening as one could ask for; great location, great weather, great beer. When the pieces come together and one is in a position to notice and enjoy it, life can be wonderful.

PTG of course is the Piano Technicians Guild and this years convention was held in Grand Rapids Michigan. Grand Rapids is a pain to get to but is a lovely little city with a fantastic convention facility. For the past number of years Ferdinand Braeu, our Technical Director has given a class on Maintaining the Bosendorfer Tone. The class combined theory and hands on voicing and has been well received. Ferdinand couldn’t make it this year due to his being needed at the introduction of the new Audi designed Bosendorfer at Audi headquarters in Germany. The replacement instructor got hung up in Paris with passport problems. It seems that the US introduced a new regulation on July 1 requriing that visitors from europe use a passport with an embedded computer readable chip. It didn’t matter that he was using an otherwise perfectly valid Swiss passport – he couldn’t get on

The Van Cliburn Competition just ended with barely a ripple on the surface of public awareness. To a certain extent this is to be expected since the world of serious piano playing is relatively small and arcane. However in my memory the Cliburn used to generate quite a bit more awareness. The biggest advantage of competitions is that they provide performance opportunities to serious students. No, I’m not referring to all the career opportunities that are supposed to come to the winners. In that area competitions seem like American Idol to me; the best careers often come to those who did NOT win. The performance opportunity is the competition itself, whether or not the individual makes it past the preliminaries. For a serious piano student, playing for themselves only goes so far. The purpose of being an artist is to communicate and to do that one must have an audience.

A single piano key sets into motion a set of 3 strings, all set in motion by the same hammer and all tuned, ideally, to the exact same pitch. This collection of 3 strings is called a unison. One usually sets a temperment by muting off 2 of the 3 strings in each unison over the temperment octave. This allows you to really focus on specific individual partials between the note you are tuning and the note you are tuning from. This is usually done by threading a thick felt strip between each of the unisons, muting the outside string of each. You then tune the center string as the reference. Setting a temperment is a really process of adjusting 12 variables, each of the strings in the octave. making those fine adjustments is considered much easier to do with one string at a time, and then, when you are

My Yamaha CFIIIS came back from PianoWorks in Atlanta and was installed in Charleston. It was very nicely strung with new pinblock and treble bridge cap. Flawless delivery to Charleston sounding very good on arrival. Good is relative, of course. The parts PianoWorks did were very very good. The sound of the hammers and their presence in a midsize room was harsh. They will only begin to sound acceptable with a couple of hours of serious voicing, and that can’t happen until the piano is tuned and very stable. To me, that’s at least 10 tunings. I just have to get started. I haven’t tuned a piano in a year and before that probably 2, so I’m rusty. The skills of tuning stay with you, like riding a bike. The facility and confidence, however, have to be painstakingly, patiently rebuilt.

The word from Vienna is that my pal Gabriela Montero (yes, she played at the inauguration) just had a big success in Vienna, playing Brahms 1 on a Bosendorfer 290 with the Vienna Philharmonic. Gabby is the real deal and if you don’t know of her, you should.  Sublime musical intelligence, warm personality, beautiful, huge sound with the added twist of being a skilled and natural improvisationist (is that a word?). This is improvisation in the classical sense, the ability to take a theme and spontaneously turn it into a polished performance. These were considered common skills for performers 100 (maybe 150) years ago but they have since disappeared from the scene. Properly done it is more than a parlor trick. There should be  all the structure of the sonata allegro form, including a development of the theme, often with variations as well as a recapitulation and coda. The idea

The Shostakovich 4th is one of my most favorite pieces perhaps due to the way I first heard it; performed by the Boston Symphony, me  a naive college student walking in completely unprepared. I walked out a different person. This video is short. Make sure you listen to the end.

I’m a huge fan of the festival, having first gone in 1980. It’s the classical music festival, held inside the mansions in Newport RI. It is a treasure of the music world due to it’s wonderful, unique programming and the supremely high level of the playing and players. Of course, it’s mostly due to Dr. Dr. Dr. Mark Malkovich, who has run it for something like 30 years. www.newportmusic.org . This year it takes place from July 10-26 and if you can possibly go, you should. Here is a list of the pianists performing this year: