Midday; David Kemmer on pianos

We think you find this hour to be rather helpful. David Cameron is in the studios today to answer your questions about how to take care of a piano or what to look for if you're buying either a used one or a new one. David Cameron lives not very far from Rochester and works on pianos for a living. He tunes them repairs them and rebuilds them David welcome pleasure to have you here today. Yeah good morning Bob. I guess I can say good new now good afternoon good as in a few seconds passed. Let's begin if we might with the piano tuning process. How often should a piano used at home for either children's piano lessons or casual adult entertainment be tuned. That's strictly dependent upon the environment and whether the home has air conditioning for the summer time and or humidification for the winter time. Under ideal circumstances where the temperature and humidity doesn't change and after the newness has worn off the pianola say like the first three or four years. A piano can really go for a very long period of time and not be tuned and be very

acceptable. I will have as many as maybe three four five years which is some people may disagree with. But that depends on how fussy you are a lot of that's going to ask you what are the symptoms of the piano needing tuning. Well again that depends on how fussy The musician is to a casual ear. They can tolerate a lot more out of tune us then. A musician who plays piano for a living and would have far more demands on an instrument in a case like that then of course they would have to have a tune many more times in the same time period. But does it begin to do the know it's simply not true anymore or is there a particular characteristic of the sound that just a simple plain sort of an aggravating type of out of tune this becomes more aggravating to some people than others. We have lines open in the Twin Cities area for your questions 6:58 six thousand is the telephone number in other parts of Minnesota you can call us toll free at 1 800 6 5 2 9 7 0 0. And in

the surrounding states call us directly in the Twin Cities the area code is 6 12 and the phone number two to seven six thousand. I believe we have a listener already on the line with a question so go ahead please you're on the air from same Us Part Two questions. I don't you're right. Really. Yes well the rotten Bush piano was considered to be a very very fine piano where we're kind of lucky here in Minnesota in that our state manufactured 5 different brands of pianos over the years. The Schimmel piano which of course is very much alive and well in Germany nowadays around the turn of the century and they for some reason got disenchanted with Germany and decided to move over here and they moved a farrago of all places and produced pianos for about the whole way of maybe 10 or 12 years and absolutely hated this country. So they picked up bag and baggage and moved back to Germany where they're still alive and well. Then of course they're out and Bush and the Wesley which are St. Paul pianos

and then there was P.S. wake and Anderson I believe that's five not to mention now they're out and Bush in the Wesley really are one in the same company. The rotten Bush would be the top name and Wesley would be like second in line but they were both so fine that they're just super great Dallas they're real fine if you can find one and I think it's great for people here in Minnesota auto on a Minnesota product when possible. All right another listener is waiting with a question on pianos Go ahead please you're on the air. Yes I would like to purchase a second hand Bennett piano for our lake cabin in northern Minnesota which is not heat. Winterman what damage would occur due to freezing temperatures or other factors. That's a very very good question because the fact that I have experienced this on occasion you can take a normal piano and put it into an environment such as this. But once you do the piano is destined to be in an environment such as that for the remainder of its life. A good example down at Rochester in the new turn of the century or the one

thousand nine hundred one thousand twelve era. A band shell was built and in the band shell they had a Baldwin grand piano that stayed there year round in unheated want to became 30 below zero the piano was 30 below zero. Let stayed in tune and behave beautifully all the years it was their club until 1963 when out of desperation after the new art center was built we borrowed the piano to use that winter and after was moved indoors into the heated environment with no humidity because of course as you know when the temperature gets very cold like that the unity also goes up very high. The piano dried out and virtually there were pieces falling apart and the poor thing was melting all over the floor like a canary that would no longer sing any way out of desperation we put the piano back in the banjo and said that the thing was a total mess and a total loss. Well by the following summer the piano had re-acclimated self to that outdoor sort of environment and was totally usable again. And. It stayed that way until they no longer had a use for it. And finally what happened is vandals

broke into the band shell and they did a lot of damage to a number of musical things including the piano so it was ultimately sold and now it belongs to the Rochester Community College and of course now that it's in an indoor environment it required totally tearing the piano apart putting a new PM blocking on it drying it out fixing the cracks in the soundboard that appeared because of the fact that when the wood dried out it shrank in all kinds of cracks appeared. So I hope that answers your question about putting it into a cab and yes you can do it but you'll have to leave it there for the rest of the life of the instrument don't ever try to bring it back indoors into a heated environment again but the heat of the summer will no no because the heat of the summer in a cabin like that still has high humidity. All right here's another listener with a question for David Cameron Go ahead please. Oh yes I'm calling from Minneapolis. It's turning and we can't completely regular. Humidity which story I'm wondering if there is a best worst time of year to consider tuning it. Is there a time when if we have it it may be more likely to go out right away are that really happening.

Oh yes it sure does. If you're on the tail end of the air conditioning season or the tail end of the heating season this of course is a matter of opinion and there may be some arguments about this. But you have a bought because a piano is made of wood you have about a two month to 3 month lag in whatever happens to the wood in it. So what will happen at the end of the season like that is if you have the piano tune in September you probably would need it tuned again in December or January so it's really much better to wait until the two or three month time period the time lag has taken place in the wood has done what it's going to do for winter and or for summer then have your piano tune and you can enjoy it for the longest possible time. However it really would be nice if more pianos had a much better climate control because then you could you could go for long periods of time enjoy the piano and have no trouble with it. You know David energy costs made a lot of changes in the way we think sure who live in our in our houses first of all they're colder Secondly we turn the thermostats down we leave for long periods that's

actually better. Well it is all yes this is an interesting thing. Speaking of pipe organs of Europe of course Michael Barone here is very familiar with those. The pipe organs of Europe have lasted for literally hundreds of years for a very interesting reason that's because they're in great big huge buildings that it's impossible to heat. Now here in this country we have old pipe organs that survive for many many years until the churches became very affluent in the 1031 1040s or whatever and put in central heat and he did the thing faithfully every day of the winter or at least he did it at a reduced level instead of just simply turning the heat off. And the poor the church furniture the poor pipe organs the pianos whatever just fell apart because of the dryness. They were far better off when they weren't heated. So people who turn their thermostats Now go away for the day and turn up when they come back at night. Yes a lot of her that actually that that's not doing anything any great damage to the thing because the fact that the higher the heat the lower the relative humidity and the more dryness of the piano and therefore the more compensation you have to do by putting

moisture in in some form or another either fry by putting something inside the piano or putting a humidifier by it or on your central heating system or whatever where listeners are waiting with questions we'll take our next call or go ahead please. My question was 20. Yeah I guess I've seen a number of different people you know. A number of different methods. One guy will sit there and bang on each record listen to what other times I've seen a guy look up a frequency meter and know by the frequency if you're a right way or a wrong way or much. What should I look for to try to get a good tuning job. Well that's a that's another very good question and I think that I brought along with me here on piano care whether there were questions asked here are some tuners work right here and some work with an electronic device and which is better actually. Either one is equally good but it alternately depends on who's doing the work. It's all in the quality control of the individual who is actually manipulating the tuning pins in the piano. Either

way can it can be and an equally successful job and the way I feel about electronic devices that are available now there in some respects in the hands of a novice they perhaps will make a piano sound a little bit dull and uninteresting particularly up in the travel because electronic device tends to want to tune a piano. Perfect straight across the board in other words all the octaves are perfectly in tune with each other and that isn't what are your wants to hear. What are your wants to hear. There's a slight stretching of the tuning in the treble and I can say this again. Let's say a semi-tone on a piano is divided into 100 cents. So 30 cents would be approximately a third of a semi-tone in the topping of a piano is tuned approximately 25 to 27 cents sharp which is almost a third of a semi-tone sharp. The bass of a typical medium sized piano of course now on a small piano this is more excessive but the bass in a medium sized piano is tuned about 14 sounds flat which is a little less than a fifth of a

semi tone roughly 6 of a semi tone so it's significant. And that's where if a machine is used improperly you'll end up with a dull and uninteresting sounding piano that can be exceedingly well into one. But in some respects too well into one it's it sounds like a pretty complicated process. Tuning a piano is it something that owner should attempt to learn himself or herself or just skip it. If it were if the owner is a professional musician I feel the same way about working on a piano as I do on a harpsichord chorus and harpsichord it's far more important because of course a harpsichord goes out to him practically every day and every every self-respecting harpsichord or carp Secord owner should learn how to tune their own instrument. Now in the case of a piano let's say in a commercial place. I feel that there's nothing wrong with the musician who plays there to have a few rudimentary tools and be able

to tune up an occasional note because very often even after piano has been tune as careful as a tuner may be in raising the tuning pins above pitch and settling them down very carefully so that everything is stressed and everything is supposed to be locked into place in tuning it doesn't always happen and maybe two days after the tuner leaves you might have one or two strings out of the two hundred twenty to two hundred twenty eight in the piano that may slip slightly. And I'm sure that nothing wrong with the musician being able to take care of those and having the tools to do it. But for the average consumer it's probably just too big and too big a task to tune the whole piano yes it's a really it's a big task because of the fact that it's just like anything else. It's something that you have to work with every day and all the time to be very good at it. When I was taking a listener with a question on piano Go ahead please you're on the air. Yeah I'm calling from all standard and have a tuning problem. Yeah that's it. But yeah from the way you do

about the situation like that's an unusual situation usually it's the opposite usually the 20 pins become loose with age I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I don't know if the caller is still on the air or not but what you mean by the frozen and personal they don't move. Do you have a good piano tuning ranch that you're using for this or do you have. I want to play that. OK that would imply that the tuning pins are extremely tight tuning pan tension has majored in torque you can take a tuning ranch let's say that's approximately 10 inches or 12 inches long and you can put a torque wrench on it. A very mediocre piano or an older one that needs to be worked on will have maybe three or four foot pounds of tension on the tuning pins and a good one will have 8 to 10 to 15 a really tight one like what you're describing may have 20 or more foot pounds on it but the strings still should move and the tuning pinched should still

turn to sounds like an unusual problem I'm not quite sure. Let's see if we can answer another question then. Go ahead please you're on the air. Yes they're going to play through it but I'm wondering if you can. Give me your impression about square here. Please I've been interested in them but I thought people give me negative reaction. Well they're Yes. There can be a lot of negative reactions and I suppose I have. I have made my own share of negative comments about square grand pianos. I feel that if you are a collector of pianos and you're already have half a dozen there's certainly nothing wrong with having a square grand in your collection. However if you're going to have a square grand piano as your one and only piano and you plan on having your kids take lessons on it or you plan on playing it yourself it's surely not the instrument to own. But if it's a quality instrument one of the top name brands back from the time period in the middle eighteen hundreds like Mason and Hamlin or Steinway or Chickering or any one of those wonderful brands it's certainly well worth

hanging onto and it's certainly well worth maintaining or finding somebody to rebuild it on occasion but they have a peculiar sound. They have a sound unlike any other piano and an interesting thing about the lineage of the square grand is that of course its predecessor dates back. Truly to the clavichord. Who are by our grand pianos and our upright piano is that you see nowadays their lineage dates back to the wing shape instrument which would be the harpsichord. So both instruments had a tangibly took off and went their director their separate directions and the square grand. As I say took off from the clavichord and that's where its lineage quit it just died out. Never went any further. But as you can see the wing shape piano and its predecessors the upright and everything of that nature are still very much alive and well today. It's about a quarter past twelve David Kammerer is with us today we're talking about pianos in taking your calls. Here's your next listener Go ahead please. Yes I would like Mr Kember's assessment of the young.

Very very fine piano. Not all of them. One thing I will say about the young Chang piano it's new to this part of the country. I was very fortunate this summer to be hired by a music store to go to the International Exposition in Chicago which was at the McCormick Place which you have any you've been to to Chicago and seen the McCormick Place it's absolutely mammoth this International Exposition for the Association of Music Merchants fills the entire place. So I had the good fortune of experiencing practically every piano known in the whole world its presently available. And of course I went through and I kept a running list of what I liked about each of the pianos because the idea was to end up with a brand that could be sold less. At a less lesser price than any of the domestic products that are made here in America and I ended up choosing as a top to import pianos the young Chang and the Sami has the possibilities for sale at a price of approximately half of what a domestic piano

would sell for. And how many pianists Did you see at that exhibition. Well now there were not actually this many on the floor the interesting thing is that some of the small and small Korean companies could not afford a space and they saw they were operating out of attachés and out of their hotel rooms and it was sort of like Detective clothes so cloak and dagger and theyd see you in an exhibit if you look like a real live healthy kicking possible piano buyer. Theyd trail you out of the exhibit and then theyd come up and they would introduce themselves. So all in all I experience 15 brands of Korean pianos and seven brands of Japanese pianos plus all of the other wonderful pianos that come from the European continent as well as the many American ones. Here's another listener with a question about pianos Go ahead please. Well I was wondering how Mr. Kember first got into it. While it fell I fell into it naturally. Shall I say I started taking lessons when I was in second grade and by the time I was out of high school I had just was a very

natural thing to work on my own piano because I ended up. I had an instrument and wouldn't stay in tune very well it was an old Schubert upright and because it wouldn't stay in well very stay in tune very well I was forced to start tuning it myself and that's how I got into this business and of course from there when I went to college. Being in the state of Iowa it was considered to be perhaps not too practical a way of making a living so I went to college and studied electrical engineering. But while I was at college the dean of the music department there who was a professor Irish Raider. This name might not mean anything to the listeners but if any of you are familiar with the Bok Singing Tower in Florida which is the carillon in the middle of the famous bird sanctuary down there he retired from Ames Iowa and moved down there and became the carol in order of that. Anyway he he's the one that convinced me to give up the nonsense of becoming an electrical engineer and went into a full time piano work and then got some proper training and is it an apprenticeship in it and everything like that really. If you're going to go into this work you really need to have

some proper background is something you really just shouldn't pick up out of a book. Are there a schools that actually teach this. There is a school in Florida. There are a number of correspondence courses and right here in Minneapolis at the Macphail school there is a course that's taught by a very fine piano technician by the name of Clifford Johnson who takes care of the pianos at Orchestra Hall for the Minnesota Orchestra. It's twenty minutes past twelve. I have a comment about the man who called in on the young Chang. I have to qualify. When I said not all the models of the pianos now there is a six foot one piano made by young Chang and also made by Samekh which is a blatant outright copy of a German Steinway. And the thing about those two particular pianos regardless of which brand they are they're both stunning sounding instruments. However the young Chang and the salmon company also make other models of pianos. What you're not copies of anybody else's pianos and

to my ear they do not sound good. And that's why I chose that particular size. And those were two particular models. The other thing is that one of the finest actions that a person can play on in the world is a runner action. They cared enough to copy the runner action. They also cared enough to use the world's best pin block which is manufactured in Germany it's known as a delayed delayed Nepean block and is used by Schimmel and some of the other world's great pianos. They also both of those brands chose to use the world's best hammers which are the Royal George Hamer's imported from England made out of Australian wool which are the finest hammers that you can get. So they've got a lot of good things going for them. OK two to seven 6000 is the telephone number if you have a question in the Twin Cities area. Pianos in other parts of Minnesota the phone number is 1 800 6 5 2 9 7 0 0 0 that's toll free. You may get a busy signal but if you do keep trying because the lines clear out rather quickly. Go ahead please your next when you need to you know what I think you should. Yes.

Special concert and then our hero wonders are hearing a piano mover better than playing with yourself. Well that depends on how able you are as a home mechanic and things of that nature and if you feel totally able or certainly nothing wrong with you moving your own piano. If it's a case of a grand piano it's probably better off leaving it in the hands of a mover for more than one reason than that is because most of the movers are bonded properly insured so that if something happens to the piano you can get reimbursed for the damage that happens to it. This is one of the things one of the chances you take as a home movie you don't have insurance or something like that in the case of a grand piano you also need special equipment you need a padded skid to turn the piano over on. You have to take the legs off you have to know how to tie down or block the hammers in an in-place if it's going to be a transporter clear across country which means you have to be able to take the action out of the piano and put it back in and you have to have someone of the other end of the line disassemble this whole thing take the action out and make it play again.

Is the color still in the line or do you have another question. Just more if you were to try to tell yourself you're taking speaking of an upright now or a grand upright. OK I was just wondering what. If there's anything other than the order other than just trying to get a passing for not having any violent shifts one way or the other when other can let me ask the caller another question Will you be moving this piano up and down a stairway by any chance. Yes definitely Hell yes. See that gets into a big problem. The thing that you want to do their courses have plenty of muscle power. Find Your Strongest most most athletic friends the ones are used to weight lifting and get four or five of them to help you ok. And then make sure that they all get in the back of the piano not in the front because of the lift the piano from the keyboard and flopped right over on its back because all the weights in the back of the piano. How much does an upright weigh roughly. Well some of the lesser brands away about five hundred sixty pounds and some of the real beefy ones will weigh

about 800 something. OK more listeners are waiting with questions go ahead please your next. Yes I'm calling from River Falls Wisconsin and I have a sample of it with the cracked sound but it still operates OK but I was finding that having it rip. It would have to be replaced. So what do you have any idea. Well may I ask you how is a piano let's say more than 10 years old or 21 years old 15 years old say I was going to say if it's perhaps less than 10 or whatever it may still be in warranty. Well it's not like oh OK it's out of that. Well the thing is that a crack in a soundboard contrary to most opinion does not really damage the instrument because if you look at a somber very carefully you'll discover that the thing is made up of a whole bunch of pieces all glued together to begin with the fact that it becomes unglued simply all and only time that you have to do something about it is going to becomes annoying because the edges rattle or the sound board has come loose from the ribs behind it which also again can cause a rattle in that case a simple procedure

is to simply make sure that it's glued back down again. Now if if for cosmetic reasons in the case of an upright I can't really see why one would want to go through all the trouble to disassemble the piano because to fix a cracked perfectly and properly as it would be done in rebuilding a grand piano you have to take the strings out of the piano. You have to lift the plate out of the piano which means of course taking all the bolts out of around the perimeter and everything you really have a lot of time and a lot of money involved in fixing. A crack in a piano. But Ed when it's part of an entire rebuilding procedure it doesn't matter. Now on a piano like yours I think the thing to do would be to just simply make sure that the loose edges are knitted back down and that they do that they don't have an annoying buzz. And other than that don't worry about the crack. OK great We'll take another listener with a question. Go ahead please. Question about covering for example is plastic metal glass effect they talk on the air on the other side there are these

homegrown interior decorator that brought a nation race in a scam to get a car on the road. How does it affect the you know the. Well that's a good question. That also is a matter of opinion. A lot of speculation. You see most of today's pianos even the very best brands built here in this country for a variety of reasons and they're not necessarily economical are using particle board for the shells of the instrument. And there's nothing wrong with quality particle board because as you know if you go by cabinets from a really quality cabinetmaking shop they'll charge you just as much to make cabinets out of good quality particle board as they would to make them out of a solid core plywood or solid wood. So that isn't the point the point the reason for using the particle board is because it's dimensionally stable and is not so apt to crack. Now the what the shell of the piano is made out of really has very little to do with what the piano ends up sounding like and the fact whether the piano is painted or not really doesn't

have a whole lot to do with it either. The back of the piano let's say thinking in terms of operates because that's what most people be familiar with. Is this release total separate entity unto itself and when it's manufactured at the factory you have a sound board that's glued onto a big wooden structure that's going to help support the strings and then over the front of that sound board goes in. A cast iron frame that sprayed with gold paint and that's to help support the strings also. So that's a total seperate entity unto itself and it's just let's say like a hi fi system whatever color the cabinet is doesn't change necessarily the sound of the hi fi system nor the piano. David Kemmer is our guest today we're talking about pianos the process of tuning them purchasing them. All of the sorts of things that piano owners prospective owners might be interested in. Here's another listener with a question go ahead please. Yes. I just purchased. Yes it is. Yes.

I C H E R and sons piano. Upright it was a car for the been done and now I've had the piano tuner up to the second time and well some of the keys were stuck and it has just was here now. It has a one very good tone. But when I play it it squeaks and then when I press on the side. Well I guess what you have to do is get the piano technician back again. If this is I have a piano atlas here and I'm trying to look up this name could you spell it for me one more time I just can't see I see. And you are still a. And so believe it or not. That one doesn't. S e h l e i c h e r George. Twelfth Street and

2nd Avenue New York established in 1862 they also made a piano known as Norah K and L are. They were produced for a very short period of time from about 19 to about one thousand six which is a very short time period. The fact that the pedal bangs and you have squeaks related to that would just imply that there are probably either something that requires lubricating or readjusting or the fact that maybe some of the pedal linkage is rubbing against a wooden or steel member inside the piano and should be moved or band or screw down into a new position or something like that. But I would suggest you generally speaking of something like this occurs in the end you are working with a really good piano technician there where they would be more than happy to come back. You just have to keep at it and gradually get there and once it's right you have a piano that you can be happy with for a long time. Great Here's another listener with a question go ahead please. Yes good afternoon. Could you please tell me how you own a Steinway errand. I've always been interested in buying or believe it's a German made piano crabbers and or for their incredibly

expensive. They sure are and I was wondering I'll hang up and listen to your answer but I would well tell me a little more about your Steinway first. OK it's a baby grand 5 2 or 5. OK that would be an L and S a Steinway. That's a very nice piano is an older one or you know which in one it's a new one gets into what I believe it was given to me as a gift by my parents. Well would you be considering going into a large bosan door for or one equivalent size to what to your Steinway or whatever one size to my style in that case I would say live and what not in that case I would say keep your Steinway. OK all right but I'd be curious about what anything else is. It makes the first crime to let crime as it were. Yeah it was well that also is a matter of opinion. And we could really go round and round on that. I love the piano. It is the world's most beautiful piano for Salon music. However in a large concert hall the thing can't cut the mustard like a Steinway or BALDWIN Can they. I think this

was put very well by one of the people that I've worked for over the years by the name of Madame Lili Kraus who was for a long time you know the authority on Mozart. I asked her years ago what she thought of the bosun Darvin this was enough years ago that they weren't being sold here in the Midwest and I had no way of seeing one she says in her opinion because she'd play them all over the world she said they are met so for tape pianos in other words up to the point where the piano starts to distort in its In other words it's like an under-powered Hi-Fi system up to a certain point it sounds nice and after you go beyond that you go beyond the limits of the system. It begins to make audible aggravating sounds. Now one of the other things that makes the business door for so fine of course is the action that it has which of course is each wanderer interaction and that's why I was mentioning earlier about this young Chang in the Samekh for instance. They cared enough to copy the world's finest action. So anyway now when you get into the larger bosan door for they're certainly worth having a round for show I say metal 14 music one of the things I like that Lili Kraus

said they are the type of piano for rich people to own so that you can sit down and play background music for all your friends to talk over. Right not a great fan of that particular Oh yes and oh yes I yes some yes for certain applications all I'm not I mean it within its limits it is the world's most beautiful piano for playing that so 14 years Exelon music but it doesn't cut the mustard in a big concert hall. OK here's another listener with a question go ahead please. Yeah I have a broad one. Eric wrote for the piano and then it that was that was you know probably the late 1940s like 46 or 47. The first thing I'd like to know if that is considered a good piano Baldwin Akra sonic there's nothing really wrong with that. It's going from particular from that time period I would say that would probably be a fairly good piano. What would you say after signing a course that could be a variety of sizes as a color still in the air. What size is it do you know this is better than the former. That's a low benefit.

OK then it would have a drop action which of course has some extra linkage involved in it which it doesn't and doesn't necessarily make it bad it just makes it more difficult for the piano technician to work on it. OK well then the next question I have is that the case has been moved quite a bit in the case of cabinetry and it is not in the best shape and it should be refinished. Other good people there in the Twin City area for doing that are. Yes as a matter of fact there are quite a number in the Twin Cities area I can't even give you the names of all of them because I don't remember theirs that there are that many but one that comes to mind of course is LUMS piano re finishers in Cambridge there's a place called Bitzer which does a superb job over in Chippewa Falls Wisconsin there is a place called C and D player piano service. Owned by a man by the name of Dennis Jensen and he has some people working for him I believe it's his brother in law who do some of the finest piano refinishing I have ever seen in the entire Midwest. Down in Cass in Minnesota there is

somebody that called his wimpy music store and they have a man and wife by the name of Sue and Truman soldi who refinished pianos for them who do a very nice job on pianos as well so they are around as a matter of while say contacting a piano technician in your particular area and see who you can find so you don't have to haul it too far away to get the work done. All right we'll move on to another listener with a question on P.A. Go ahead please. Yes I have a fisher groomed and I'm wondering if Mr. Camber has any knowledge of Fisher and who might be a good person to rebuild this type of panel and how much it would cost. And this sounds like a gentleman by the name of Lyle Haggart. It's. That's a very good quality piano. And again there's all kinds of work that can be done on a piano and the sky is a limit as to whatever you want to pay to have the work done in the process of shopping around and you can be competitive you

can even. Well just like when you go buy a piano it's a matter of working both ends towards the middle and you go to Point A and you see a piano and you go to Point B and you tell them that you've been to point a new look at a piano and it cost thousands of us and if you're going to buy this other band they better make the price competitive. Generally speaking do you think it's worthwhile to have little panel restored or better to buy and that's a good question. There is hardly except let's say a piano that's been devastated in a flood or something like that. There is really no such a thing as the piano that can't be rebuilt. It's just a matter of whether they're really worth the trouble. Of course the very fine ones truly are worth the trouble and the bad ones a room well they're better off just being ignored or or otherwise done away with. Put on the scrap heap. OK another listener is waiting with a question for David Cameron Go ahead please. In regards to him. If you question my sister just put her 60 year old upright piano in her garage. I made it a month ago.

What kind of damage is happening at this point in time probably nothing because we haven't gotten into the really cold time of the year. If it gets really cold and it's a prolonged time and it's through the rest of the winter you may end up with a piano that won't stay in tune anymore because of the fact that the excessive humidity humidity will cause the wood around the tuning pins to expand and when it ultimately shrinks as it will when it's brought back indoors into our Minnesota winters it won't have the ability to grip the tuning pins tight enough to tune the piano any more. That's still not the end of the piano if it's a quality instrument of course you can't repeat on the piano with larger peons or in the case of a grand piano you can even replace and place a pin block of it's inexpensive enough instrument to be worth the trouble. But to save that piano it would really be a not a bad idea to get it out of the. That's right that's right. Yeah OK here's another listener with a question please. Yes I was wondering if you would be here but it's a crossover. You know it and I have to keep it just to keep the piano

completely closed up in the wintertime right. That doesn't really matter a whole lot as much as it matters what the environment of the room that it's in is like now in the case of pianos let's say in concert halls or larger areas in older buildings. It's very difficult to of course climate control and environment that huge it just isn't possible. It's not at all practical. So what I have suggested on occasion in college auditoriums and things of that nature that they simply get a plastic drop cloth big enough to go around the piano and down to the floor and by a small area humidifier because in an area that size if it has an on off device it will sense the moisture level. A humidifier like that won't require much attention at all. It won't require filling even on a weekly basis. Now if the piano was uncovered and used for a few hours each day of course the humidifier will use more moisture. But then you simply when you're not playing the piano but the plastic drop cloth back over it again and you have your own little cocoon around the piano

that keeps it in its quality controlled environment and all the problems ceased to exist in the home one would probably not be terribly inclined to do that I know about in a home you're generally working with a smaller room and at least what you can do is put an area humidifier in the proximity of the piano you don't have to worry about the rest of the house in an older home it's very desirable to do that because the fact if you get the humidity up to the desired 30 or 35 percent the piano is like and that they sound best at in the cold part of winter in an older house you're going to have serious problems going to you're going to have ice build up around windows and things like that that's not nice to the house. Trying to co-exist with a piano can sometimes difficult That's right. Right but the old fact is that piano comfort and creature comfort are identical and if the human is comfortable so is the piano. That's true of the summertime as well as the winter and that's why if you walk across the carpet and you get zapped every time you touch a light switch you better do something about your humidity and get it up 21 minutes before one o'clock Here's another caller with a question. Go ahead please.

Well I am the piano technician 2030s and I also rebuilt and rigged it. And so I get a lot of comments or questions from people about what is the answer to. Oh Bertha you know and all should people buy a new piano or to have an old piano rebuilt. Papa I don't know what your opinion is on pop right when they are completely rebuilt. Well again that has to do with the shall I say the lineage of the heritage of the piano if it's one of the top name brands. An old piano can be a super fine instrument. Again if it's old let's say on a scale of 1 to 10 something less than a five or a four or three or even a minus two. Why bother. But of course that also applies to new piano as there are a lot of new pianos that that are not worth the trouble either. To follow up on that just a little bit what are some things that you would be wary of when shopping for a used piano. What are some telltale signs of when to use or abuse.

Again the tell tale signs of hard use and abuse generally are very obvious. The piano older ones generally if they've been used tired it's obvious to the eye without even looking inside the piano because they'll all be beat up the keyboard will be worn out or the keys will be wobbly or goodness knows whatever else. And in the case of Graham looking down through the strings and seeing the hammers with deep grooves in the show of course at the piano was used a great deal or in the case of an upright lifting the lid and looking coarse other telltale signs are looking near the bottom of the piano for a loose veneer and things like that and you can assume that somewhere in the history of the piano it probably sat in a basement installation or in a walk in basement and one of the newer homes and against a wall where dampness got it from the back side in a case like that it doesn't necessarily make it a bad piano but it's something to be wary of because it could also mean that there are a lot of glue joints and glue in the there have to be fixed or or it will just be a mediocre instrument helpful in negotiating the price of any Oh it sure is is one of the other things that a chorus is helpful in negotiating the price is this myth about

crack sound or because there is hardly such a thing as an old piano that doesn't have at least one crack in the soundboard someplace. So after looking at the instrument all over you can pull it out from the wall and look behind and say oh this piano is a crack soundboard. Very horrified about the course that knocks another hundred dollars or two or $500 off the price right then and there. As you pointed out to a previous caller it isn't all that serious no it really isn't. OK 18 minutes before one let's take another listener Go ahead please. Oh yeah I know someone had called up previously about opposing door for oh I had a relative who passed when not too long ago that part of your state is opposing the door for a grand and there was no room left. I contacted an attorney and he told me that legal fees might run up before a $5000 concerning that I was wondering if such an amount of money would be worthwhile in order to get a bonus and offered. Well can I ask the caller. Is the piano here in this country or is it over in Europe

and I have to be brought over here on the East Coast. It's on the East Coast. Next question is how old is it. Is it from the 1000 20s or is it a newer one. It's from my 20s from the 1920s that's probably a very good vintage. Is it a small one or medium size or really large it's quite large. It's a quite large one it might even be one of the unique ones with the extra keys of the thing yes if it is on a case like that your money would be well spent. Well thank you very much. All right let's take another listener Go ahead please you're on the air. Oh thank you I've been listening with interest to the program and we haven't seen a grammar that was drunk about eight years ago. It receives a lot of playing by your children and things like it that of every six and listening to your comment. How many years have you had it. We have had it since it was three drunk years ago eight years ago. OK. And in the summer we probably have an excess amount of humanity.

Do you don't use air conditioning then don't. Well there's your problem right there. In the summertime your piano is going through sharp very sharp particularly in the tenor range and going very flat in the wintertime. The next thing about the piano is that after the first three years the newness would be worn off the strings. If the piano was faithfully two and two to three times each year for the first three years the stretch is taken out of the strings and the piano should stabilize and stay in tune very well after that time period. So if you're having a tuning problem it probably is not the tuners fault at all it's probably your environment. Sixteen minutes before one o'clock Here's another listener with a question go ahead please. Quick question one I received a piano from my grandmother. You're 30 years old Coleman Everett and I wonder if you know anything about it. And the question here is anything serious going to happen. The piano was never too can seem to be playing fairly well now and someone told me that I should write what I want to thank you. How old is this piano.

I think it's 30 years. Twenty five or thirty or maybe you know. How long has it been since been tuned. Probably ten years. Well if it was two and faithfully prior to that time period it maybe surprisingly well in tune and then again it may not depending on all the other circumstances including environment. I've heard pianos that have gone well over 10 years sometimes even 20 years since they were tone. But because they had been beautifully maintained in the early stages of their life they were still remarkably well in tune and very close to pitch. Should he leave well enough alone and not by the tuning. Well if if you have no one playing the piano I can't really see justifying tuning it unless let's say it's off pitch a long ways and really you shouldn't let a piano stay that way for a long period of time it would be nice to get it brought up to pitch it would be maybe one money well spent. Here's another listener with a question on pianos Go ahead please.

Yes good afternoon. I have a 19 23 so my piano and I think it's a grand piano it's a five watch I'd like you know answered a question. Whether it's considered a grand piano or a baby grand. Also keeping it outside corner of the living room and a three year old home going to cause any problems for the piano and with you. Third answer what you think about the sandwich type piece. May I ask you use a three year old home I would assume that it has proper vapor barriers in the wall and is probably very well insulated right. Right and a case like that it really doesn't matter where you put the piano it can be anywhere. It's the older homes that you have to worry about. And really that it's not a myth when it comes to placing a piano on an inside wall in older homes the idea is to get it away from heat registers which are usually on the perimeter and they're not necessarily on the inside wall so that gets at a far distance from the heat register and secondly because the outside walls in older homes are often poorly insulated and have no vapor barriers at all which are all things that

are detrimental to a piano. Now summer is a very fine piano course it's still very much alive and well in business and it's being sold by the Schmidt music store here in the Twin Cities. The software that you have from that time period would be an exceedingly nice piano because they were sonar was building really super great pianos in the 1980s along with Steinway and Mason and Hamlin and Chickering and Baldwin and cannot be they were all doing great job. I think the last part of your question was that five foot ones yes is that what I would call that a baby grand anything from hole for seven to roughly five to we can call a baby grand. Anything from well I mean you know there's barely weighs in here because of course with all of the thousands of brands of pianos that come and gone you can find a grand piano almost by every inch all the way from something in the middle four foot six range all the way up to over nine feet long and sold baby Grand's would be anything up to maybe five to five for a small neck size grand would be probably a five

seven and you get into the parlor or salon sized grounds which would be six foot seven foot and then the small to the large concert grands which are seven to nine feet. And in a few rare cases even a little bit longer. Another listener is waiting with a question on P.A. Go ahead please. Trailers. Yes you may have already answered this question but I've been meaning to ask your for a long time. If there are people such as myself. Would prefer any kind of grand to any upright. Is there a really small grants made baby grand that overcome little problems most baby grands have. In particular are there any baby grands made that have a reasonable base that has a lot to do with not only the bass string scale but the construction of the soundboard. Yes in my opinion there are some very nice baby Grand's I mean again this of course is is a thing that

is subject to personal opinion and personal likes both the Baldwin and the Steinway which are domestic pianos and of course I'm very much in favor of buying domestic pianos helping the American economy when possible but on occasion of course price is an object and you have to look elsewhere. But again any piano that has a solid spruce sound board in it is more likely to have a better sounding bass and a better sounding tenor range. Then a piano that has a laminated sign on board. The laminated sound board does not allow the thickness to be varied not easily at least from the bass to the treble and to sound good a bass has to have a very thin sound board and very flexible and in the treble if it stand like that it has a bad sound. So the travel the soundboard could be a thickness something well over a quarter of an inch in the bass area it should be something well under an eighth of an inch thick very very thin and that will help promulgate a good sounding bass.

Moving on to another question from a listener. Go ahead please. I'm primarily interested in two things one I'd like to find out what information you can give me. Packard piano I have an upright Packard piano built in Fort Wayne Indiana. I'm told in 1949 a couple years ago. Yeah. Secondly this panel seems to have a proud. The key sticking especially the summertime I assume that's humidity problem that serious yes. Survey says a full sized upright are a little bit shorter than a film short of a full size maybe like what we nowadays call a studio sized piano. Yeah OK yes that could have been well made in the 1040s. They actually the Packard piano company was in Fort Wayne Indiana and it started to make pianos and 18 71 but they were discontinued very quickly but then again they started up in 1895 and one right up to one thousand fifty seven when they went out of business.

They were at that time period bought up by story in Clark and story in Clark produced pianos for a short period of time using the Packard name on them. There actually was a connection between the Packard piano and the Packard automobile. And both are very good. Of course his we well know by the collectors who loved to buy Packard automobiles as well. Nine minutes before one hears our next caller Go ahead please. Yes. Corinne from with. We have a 900 back with great player that we're trying to restore power to do that we have to. The mayor for that. And my question for her to clean up the interior now that we have it available. For instance how do we train up the new hire for the heart of the strings from a keyboard. Or would you recommend that this be done by a professional. And we're also wondering if you would recommend that we replace things for your 83 years old. OK all right. I would have to make several comments about this as far as replacing the strings if from that time period probably back with since it was made and sold for Sears Roebuck.

It probably has iron won based rings which were an economy major and by this time period to be strings probably are as dead as a tomb. They don't have any resonance to them so you would probably have to at least replace the bass strings. The rest of the piano that's questionable you'd have to leave that up to the decision of a qualified technician and of course in St. Paul or quite a few. Just as are in Minneapolis it would be very well-qualified. As far as cleaning up the interior of the piano you'd clean it like you would any decent thing in your house you can even use a mild solution of some sort of a household cleaner and then a mildly damp cloth to clean up all the surfaces and get them scrubbed Dilla nice and clean you don't have to really and you don't have to worry anymore about things of that nature than you would clean your or your bathroom sink or your bathroom cupboards and things of that nature you know you'd use the same discretion. OK we can take another listen you know. Go ahead please you're on the air.

But first I'd like to think I've been in the market for my first piano. Yeah. I want to thank you for this you're very informative. I've got two questions for you. One is how would your great ally right. I don't want to. And the second question is which size do you have in mind. I'm looking at seven. I'm thinking physically now because there are some lovely co-op writes very very fine sounding not studio monolith. I think it's about a 40 40 minutes. They have one model larger like that this is a six exceedingly fine piano just as good as anybody's ask some more questions. OK. I'm trying to keep my budget to that $3000 range. OK and I was wondering if you had $3000 and your piano which one would you pick. Which one would I pick for three Falcon dollars. Wow. Again

and how can you get your wife for that price. Yeah it would be you know be a little bit less a little bit less. Well if it's well picked and I'd take some musician along some musician friend who plays piano Well I haven't play it and if they endorse it buy it. OK right good luck. Good luck with it five minutes before one o'clock. Here's another listener with a question you know yes I'm trying to find out about. COLIN CAMPBELL Again I understand that you can see what I just did you just buy for the bad news that it takes a qualification there consumer digest isn't a very small publication. I saw the issue that that you're mentioning yet welcome some coal and camels are very nice instruments. But at the same time. Consumer digest vs.. I think that the famous one is called Consumer Report consumer report does not take ads. They are an independent agency sort of like underwriter laboratory and when they say something is good or bad you can pretty well take their

word for in the case are going to consume or die. This one that you mentioned. You know it was published in Des Moines Iowa and you can just about buy your way into it and put anything in it that you'd like. So you can't really take that as the authority on the subject. But yes Colin Campbell makes a consul sized piano which in my opinion is a very nice one. It has some wound strings in the tenor range which give a richness in the fullness that so often missing in the tenor range of pianos. One of the things in favor of COLIN CAMPBELL pianos is of course that they have furniture styles that are absolutely incredibly beautiful compared to what some of the competitors have. But here's a case where you are paying more for the shell of the instrument than what goes inside of it. Let's I'll give you a rundown of COLIN CAMPBELL You can pay as much as 60 percent of the price of the instrument for the shell in front of her means that much to you and you like the furniture style Well by all means buy it. But

again if you want to buy a piano and get the most for your money you buy the really the in the plane cabinet let's say like a very simple Steinway or a very simple Baldwin in the case of the Baldwin I can say specifically that the shell of the instrument costs 15 percent of the price of the instrument so you can pay anywhere from 15 percent to 60 percent for what you see and that does nothing to the sound of the piano. It's three minutes before one I think we have time for a couple more calls Go ahead please your next afternoon I'm calling from Northfield. Some time ago just a few months ago I think I heard a kind of chanting program on St. Paul's from Good Morning coda to the fortepiano and ever since then I've been wondering if there are. Companies or individuals who manufacture fortepiano today in the United States and other more expensive or less expensive relative to a similar size cared for today thank you. May I ask you Are you fairly handy in terms of building things really sure you can get kits for these fortepiano.

Oh I didn't know that. I write I write off the top of my head I can't tell you the names of the companies but with a little bit of scouting around yes you can find sources for the kits and you can put them together if you think you could put a harpsichord together you can easily put a fortepiano together. As a matter of fact there are some people right here in Minneapolis and St. Paul who have done exactly that and is there a source I could go to that might have this appreciation. A gentleman who is a friend of Michael Brawns by the name of Dick Sorenson does that name ring a bell. Not to me. He he. I believe he's the one who actually put one of these incidents together did a beautiful job of it. We have about two minutes left let's take one more clawing briefly one quick question and answer Go ahead please your next. OK I'm looking also for a good piano and I'm willing to spend a fair amount of money. I was wondering if you could if you could think of any type of piano that was particularly undervalued. Undervalued how much I might expect to pay for it. When you say undervalued what.

Well it's not it's not a real popular name it's not a name that it's not like Steinway or Baldwin or something that people really are familiar with and we're paying a lot for the name which which means if you get a really good piano but I'm not paying for that record tell you thinking in terms of a domestic American built piano or did you find. Sure I would say. And again because of course I love Steinway their beautiful piano. You can buy two Baldwin studio pianos for the price of one Steinway and still have a little money left over. And their price range is about as low as you're going to find. You know you can get into other American made pianos. The average and even Charles Walters it makes a piano an Aston way from Salt Lake City. But the problem is that they're every bit as much money as the Baldwin. Again if you have your heart set on a Steinway and have the money to buy it spend it. But otherwise I would say that you know buy something in the price range of the Baldwin.

Well David Cameron thank you very much for joining us we have run out of time. It's been a real pleasure to listen to you answer questions about pianos and honestly my pleasure. Great deal of interest I really really wasn't sure what the program would bring or what types of questions but I'm finding this fascinating. Very good sir thank you. The engineer today Conrad Lindbergh and thanks also to Dorothy Hanford. Today's broadcast of midday is made possible in part by the Medtronic foundation. Medtronic designs and produces implantable medical devices.