Restoring Pianos

Piano Restoration

At this stage I should preface with “Murky Waters Ahead.” Everyone has a different opinion on the subject and in the piano world, where everyone is a self-proclaimed expert, there are lots of opinions. Just because a piano tuner has your undivided attention for the duration of the tuning, reflecting what an expert in piano restoration he is, it doesn’t necessarily make him one.  This is not an attack on piano tuners in anyway. Just seeking to point out that if I said I was amazing at tennis, it doesn’t mean I could actually play a game competently. 

Degrees Of Restoration

What is appropriate when we are talking about restoring a classical instrument? If a piano was built in Berlin at the turn of the century in the Bechstein factory, using original Bechstein parts, is it appropriate for us to change the majority of those action parts for new and still expect it to play or resemble in anyway an original Bechstein piano? No would be our answer but that is just our ethos: change as little as possible unless required because every change made will take away from the original soul of the instrument. 

There are plenty of people who restore pianos that replace these things because they simply can, then tell the customer it is like brand new. If I wanted brand-new, I would go and buy a brand-new piano hot off the boat from the far east, where 93% of all new pianos come from. Don’t believe the badge or the blurb, they simply do. I digress my apologies. 

A quick list of things that can get changed in a piano: action parts, hammers, string, pin block, soundboard. These are all major factors in the construction of a piano change anyone or you are subtracting from the original instrument, how it was supposed to sound and play but many do. 

Expert Hands !

Along comes our “expert tuner.” He is a bit short on work and needs to eat just like the rest of us. Your piano would be so much better if I put a whole new set of strings on it and rebuilt the action, he tells the old lady with the lovely Bechstein she has cherished all these years. She thinks “I do so love my piano and I could afford the work, surely if my expert piano tuner tells me it’ll be better then I’m sure it will”. This is where I’m hissing as if at a pantomime, don’t do it! The tuner, if he does the work, will change the very things that the lady loves about her cherished Bechstein: the touch and tone. I’m sure we all remember the fable of the king’s new clothes, just because the tailor says they will be the finest it doesn’t necessarily make it any less cold when you are walking down the street in your birthday suit.

The examples I use are to simply express that work for the sake of work, in our humble opinion, is unwarranted. Make the instrument as good as it possibly can be without major changes. Tune and regulate then you have piano that still performs and sounds the way it was made to in its day.