Showing posts with label Piano Trade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Piano Trade. Show all posts

Wednesday 27 October 2021

The Perfect Touch

The hunt to find the piano with a perfect touch would be a very tough assignment. On a 10 point checklist of qualities required for consideration, very few pianos would achieve 10 out of 10.

Though wonderful specimens of the piano maker's art, even expensive new pianos, are often short on the magic that sparkles when the action and keys supply the player with the wings of creative inspiration - allowing flight to that mysterious zone where, the player is released from the confines of unsatisfactory playability, and enjoys the timeless pleasure of music making purity. This zone is home to the perfect touch. Playability fulfilled!

A tuner/technician's experience will agree that perfection in a piano is almost unheard of! My old boss, when I was an apprentice, often used to say, "Pianos are imperfect instruments!" - of course, back in the 1970s, he was right - the pianos of the time were generally very poor and always, had issues. I think he got tired of having to find new things to say to customers who rightly felt disappointed with their purchases.

Surely today, pianos must be somewhat closer to the ideals of the piano designer's blueprint! Throwing money at the problem is not always a complete solution - indeed, unless the those undertaking the challenge of sorting it out, know exactly what they are doing, the finished piano might still only be an expensive disappointment.

We, in the trade must strive for excellence and then, go the extra mile, make an art of the job, sprinkle with gold dust and unlock the wonders of a well regulated action and give the 'Perfect Touch' within, the chance to inspire further generations of keen pianists! 
   

Saturday 28 September 2019

The Piano Tuner's Visit

The Piano Tuner’s visit is one of the things that so easily slips down the priority list. Subscriptions for the phone, TV, broadband, the dentist, the car, MOT, house insurance, school kit… etc.

On and on it goes! It’s a wonder we get through to the end of the month!

There ought to be some clever scheme that makes the piano being tuned important enough to warrant being placed higher up on the list of ‘to-do’ jobs!

I am old enough not to care about being old. I hate feeling cornered or obliged to be paying out money unless I really appreciate to the full what I am paying for. 

A reply to a tuning reminder sent a while ago, said that ‘my husband says the piano is still perfectly in tune so we will leave it this time.’ 
While I respect where he is coming from I am aghast at his priorities! What can be more important than having the piano tuned?

In the great mix that makes up the society of modern times, I do have some nostalgia for the slower pace of bygone days - days of not so very long ago. Days when nobody cared if you spent your evenings playing the piano or reading a book. Watching TV was a lazy persons way to pass the time.  Today it is all about 'surfing the web', or looking at social media, or exploring the endless choice of streaming services!  

Writing a blog is my nod to the internet - some things cannot be avoided. But I still feel that creativity is known and experienced at its best when there is a piano being played!


©Steve Burden

Sunday 8 December 2013

Piano Tuning as a Career

Piano Tuning is unlikely to be top of the list of potential careers for a school leaver. The promise of great wealth just isn't there, a commanding status among your peers is not included in the package either. So what is it that makes people go into this strange and, slightly cranky profession?

Piano Tuning - for those seeking adventure!

Of course, piano tuning is not a job that would suit everyone: fussing over whether a C# is a tiny bit flat or not, will not trouble most of the piano-playing public, but if you relish the thought of getting a standard piano as close to perfectly in tune as is possible while using little more than your ears, then Piano Tuning could be for you.

The great treasures of experience are the reward of years of hard graft learning the basics of the trade. Indeed it is during the early years of a career that the heavy and difficult building blocks of the job as a whole, are put into place. Persevere through these tough times with a growing focus on the prize, and you are the road to success.

Piano Tuning is one of those jobs in which one never stops learning. There are always better ways of doing things. There are greater depths of understanding how the piano action works. By just playing a chord, you can get a pretty clear idea of  how a given piano is going to respond to tuning. 

Just now, it is unclear how the Piano Trade is going to deal with the challenges of the next few decades. Sadly, a poorly-trained workforce will only accelerate an overall decline. Somehow, we in the trade have to look ahead, plan and work hard to save our crucial part of piano culture and our unique set of skills and abilities.


Tuners Journal

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Wednesday 15 August 2012

The changing face of the Piano Trade

It is lamentable that the Piano Manufacturing Industry in England - once so enviable and influential, has all but disappeared without trace. Back in the 1970s, noticing the first few imported pianos from unfamiliar makers, one could sense that change was in the air. Complacency in any industry is a bad policy. Once decline sets in and the momentum gathers pace, the outcome is depressing.

Seeing a Yamaha piano for the first time was like seeing a 'cloud the size of a man's hand' - a cloud that in no time at all, filled the heavens and brought a great deluge of rain! The first batches of Yamaha pianos delivered to the local piano shop created astonishment. It was clear the Japanese piano was going to be a threat to the market dominance enjoyed for so long by the English piano. How was it that a piano made in Japan could be sold for just a little more than a piano made in the UK? 

The best British pianos seemed to be rather average compared to the imported pianos that soon dominated that new-piano-market. One by one, the English manufacturers ceased production so that in a few decades, we saw the total loss of an industry. Alas for the English Piano!

The more recent economic downturn has added further woes and bad news to Piano shops up and down the country. Pianos are regarded as a luxury item - and are one of the first items of expenditure to be delayed or postponed entirely. 

Where will all this take us? Only the 'fittest' of piano shops will survive, and it will take a few years of successful trading to put a smile back on the face of the piano trade. 

Buying and selling pianos on eBay may turn out to be the method of choice for bargain hunters  - but there are plenty of dangers to be met with here. Off-loading an awful piano is quite easy if you can produce a few good photos! Auction Houses have, for a very long time, been selling what other people no longer want. Maybe, ebay will be able to preserve a strong, residual demand for the good old-fashoned, traditional piano! However, buying online is quite a gamble when there can be no substitute for sitting at the piano itself - to hear it, feel it and to try to answer the question: Do I like this piano enough to buy it?


Tuner's Journal

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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