Loud Piano Music
By Robbie Rhodes
"Gracious!" said the little old lady, "The music is too loud!"
She might have been attending a contemporary Rock Concert, or perhaps the restaurant harpist three tables away began a new song. Whatever the cause, the complaint "The music is too loud" often signifies: "I'm not interested in the music -- I want to talk, not listen!"
Thus my wife leaves the room and shuts the door when I start the piano playing. That's okay. The next-door neighbor closes his windows if he wants my music at lesser volume. That's okay, too. And, when I want background player-piano music of my choice at "background music" loudness, I play a cassette recording and adjust the volume control to my pleasure.
No pneumatic or solenoid piano is made with a true volume control. I asked Wayne Stahnke if the Boesendorfer SE system could be so equipped. He said that it might be possible, but that there was no need to, since the buyers were interested only in accurate reproduction of SE recordings.
The Marantz Pianocorder had controls which established the highest and lowest solenoid voltages corresponding to the highest and lowest intensity commands. The soft-level control was seldom changed -- it remained in the setting where the softest notes would speak reliably. Adjusting the high-level control would expand or compress the dynamic range. Most of the Pianocorders I hear in public rooms have the high- level control set at minimum, and hardly any musical "expression" is evident. But the little old ladies can talk okay.
(The 4-bit binary control scheme in the Pianocorder was intended to somewhat emulate Duo-Art, but during early production the binary weighting values were altered from the integral 1-2-4-8 relationships. This resulted in a fold-back of the transfer curve, and meant that the entire library of music needed correction. Only the last sessions of live artist recordings were completely edited and corrected to correspond with the idiosyncrasies of the machine. The earlier recordings received no compensating editing, and so had annoying aberrations in intensity. Compressing the dynamic range with the playback level controls actually made the performance sound better, even though the dynamics were squashed to almost nothing.)
The Ampico A and B pianos also have a "Subdue" mechanism which compresses the dynamic range, thereby reducing the overall volume level but also reducing the separation between the musical theme and accompaniment. It's better than nothing, and allows one to hold a conversation near the piano. The classical music is pretty lifeless, but I guess that's okay.
The owner of the big, old-time piano store explained that the volume of a reproducing piano often overwhelms a new owner. "When I return to the store there is often a telephone message waiting for me, from the wife of the new owner, asking, 'How do I make it play softer?' Sometimes the remedy includes thick sheepskins on and under the piano."
I suspect that some Boesendorfer owners also feel overwhelmed, and revert to playing audio recordings on a fancy music system, with a true "Volume Control" which preserves the dynamics and allows conversation nearby. I wish that my pneumatic piano was as controllable.
Robbie Rhodes
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