I learned a couple of interesting things about Forster pianos during my visit. Click on each thumbnail to enlarge.

They have this cool slot cut in the inner rim that allows it to resonate somewhat separately. I’ve seen a number of Forster pianos over the years but had never noticed it, not that it is easy to notice on the completed piano. You’d have to look carefully at the very bass end where the soundboard meets the inner rim and ask yourself why there appears to be a very precise gap there.

Yet more about Forster

Tampa Bay Bridge

Fall means catching up on some travel and I headed south to the Orlando area and Naples. I flew into and out of Orlando, driving down to Naples and back. This is a bit of a drive but I had a pretty nice car due to an upgrade from Hertz.

I visited my dealer who also handles Steingraeber and saw my first Steingraeber carbon fiber soundboard. The idea here is NOT that carbon fiber works as well as wood. I heard it and it doesn’t. The point is that this allows high quality pianos to be installed in hostile (at least to pianos) environments that would ordinarily eat soundboards for lunch. My understanding is the the Moscow Conservatory owns a couple of these and that makes sense. Harsh climate, long cold winters, old facilities with no chance of adding enough humidity to the bone dry winters. This board sounds reasonable enough over most of the expanse of the keyboard. The tone is a little off but the sustain is good and the action of course feels completely normal.
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I’m a fan of trying something new and this is a great way of addressing one of the biggest traditional problems in the piano world; low humidity. That it comes from such a small, old world maker as Steingraeber is great. As you will see in a later post, soundboards are not the only thing Steingraeber is experimenting with.

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Carbon Fiber Soundboard

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 been a proponent of tuning by listening to the complete sound of a particular note, rather than listening and tuning only to specific harmonics or “partials”. He has also been a lone voice in the wind for a long time, especially with the popularity of electronic tuning devices which can ONLY listen to individual partials. However Smith makes a good point, which is that when one listens to a piano being played, one listens to the complete tone of the piano, not individual harmonics so why not tune that way. And, in my experience, the tunings I’ve heard by skilled practitioners have been quite convincing.

Smith has also proven that the pitch of a 3 string unison changes (drops) when you tune with only 2 strings sounding at a time. This is very hard to get ones head (ears) around but it has been proven. This means that the customary way of tuning, tuning the center string then the other 2 unisons to it, is, well, wrong! In Smiths opinion, one should never tune 1 string by itself.

Umm, how do you do this without 2 tuning hammers? David Anderson gives a good demonstration by “cracking the unison”, knocking one of the 2 out (you can mute the 3rd, when setting the first, thank god) and then focusing your hearing on the one that you are tuning, ignoring the other clearly out of tune string.

Easier said than done.

This technique also means that you are pretty sure (really really sure) of how you are setting your temperament since it does not tolerate a lot of fussing. But, again, in my experience the proof is in the pudding and pianos tuned this way sound exceptionally clear and musical.

I’m working on developing this skill and it does not come easy.

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 satisfied, you tune each of the other strings (left and right) to the center one.

Now, there are different techniques. One way is to mute off the entire piano, listening to a total of 2 strings at a time. But as with a lot of things, less is often considered more. The macho tuner claims to use 1, or maybe 2 individual mutes. The implication and reality is that that tuner is so sure of where that single string is set, that he can tune the other 2 to it and be confident that he won’t need to come back and adjust it slightly later. It sounds like hubris but when you see it done by the right person, you come away thinking that there was no other position for any of the strings, that that person set them exactly where they were meant to be.

This assumes a very high skill level and a piano that is extremely well tuned to begin with. But it also compliments the notion that very high level tuning takes into account all 3 strings of any unison as an integral part of the overall sound of that piano. By muting off you’re taking out of consideration a key part of resulting piano sound so how could your tuning possibly be optimized?

All it takes is practice.

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.

New brigde cap

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.
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Saw a model 200, about 30+ years old, rebuilt by a reputable shop. The original Schwander action had new Renner whippens. The hammers were Renner blues, the bass strings probably Mapes.  While overall the work was of reputable quality, it was a long way from Bosendorfer and had this strange burnt orange, thick lumpy finish on the plate.

The real question is, what is it? I would argue that it is not a Bosendorfer anymore since so many of the parts were not original. This flies in the face of common rebuilder philosphy, at least here in the US. This approach comes from the experience with American Steinway which says that a good rebuilder can actually make a piano BETTER than the original.

The issue is that assumptions made about one make of piano do not translate directly to another and most of the tweaks that people would take for granted in a Steinway actually deteriorates a Bosendorfer. If you own one, you can do with it what you want and there are some great high end technicians out there. You could done one of those wild bridge modifications, change hammers, Stanwoodize the action, add brass weights to the soundboard…LOTS OF STUFF, but I don’t know that you would end up with a better piano. Different, yes.

I’ve been trying to think of a proper analogy to keep from sounding like some corporate stooge and maybe here is one:

A major overhaul of a Bosendorfer by a high end tech, using some of the modifications above, is sort of like a sommelier choosing to take 3 expensive bottles of wine and blending them himself just before serving. Yes, the end result might be better than any of the 3 individual bottles, but many people want to see what the vinyard bottled, what the vinyard was looking for. They’re looking for the experience the maker intended, not what somebody else, skilled though they might be, thinks is right, just because he (or she) can.

These modification tools are great for helping older instruments, or ones that clearly have dificiences in important areas. This kind of modification is a relative recent development in this business. But doing so has ramifications.

David Andersen is a very interesting high end piano technician in Los Angeles. I attended one of his tuning seminars at the PTG convention in Rochester. Very very interesting, holistic approach to life as well as tuning.

Here is his blog, one of the few I have found by high end piano technicians.

And the 3rd unique feature, in my opinion, is the 4th unison string in the treble. This string is raised above the level of the other 3, so the hammer does not strike it. It’s purpose is to vibrate sympathetically, contributing to the unique Bluthner tone.

It even has it’s own little damper.

Bluthner was the only maker of the 3 that allowed me to take photos. As Christian said, one can take all the photos one wants, you still won’t be able to build a Bluthner, and he’s right.

The factory is a familiar sight of individual craftspeople working on individual pianos, with a mixture of machines for doing various steps, primarily wood working such as planing and trimming.

Rim Construction

There are, in my mind, 3 unique structural features of the Bluthner. The first is the sectioned inner and outer rim. Bluthner uses a laminated rim, as is common in piano building. To those new to this, laminated simply means layers of red beech glued together in a mold. This is a very familiar and traditional method of making a piano rim.

However, instead of being bent all in one piece, they are built in sections and then joined together. The purpose, in Christians words, is to have a rim that is completely free from stress or tension.

In this photo, you can see the outer rim section, and on the right, just the edge of the inner rim joining.

Cylindrical Soundboard Crowning

The second unique feature is the cylindrical, rather than spherical crown. It’s a little hard to show in a photo, but Christian demonstrated with a business card:

This is done for both strength and tonal purposes and is on the uprights as well.

Oh my dear, you understand me but you don’t understand the nature of piano technology.

I took a good wack at making progress on my piano. I fine tuned the key level, then went over the hammer line, drop and let off before taking a critical bash at keydip. AT LAST, it’s beginning to feel like a piano! Yes, uneven as hell, but at least there is aftertouch.

I’m keeping a pretty good eye on the humidifier. I’ve got 3 hygrometers scattered around and am keeping things between 40% and 50%. Still, the tuning drifts (at least to my ear…being a piano tuner can be a curse) so I spent some time tuning the other day. Rather than just do the quick fix with the standard settings in the RCT, I spent some critical time getting my ear back for aural temperaments.

Of course, by the time that was done, I had little patience for voicing, so took a couple of jabs to get the edge off and put everything back. What I really need are 2 solid 8 hour days, but that probably won’t happen soon…nobody’s paying me!