Andy Taylor wrote:

> But consider this: what made a certain brand more powerful than the
> other?  The soundboard for the most part!  If you are doing all that
> work anyway, why not raise the quality and the power if you can?

It is not my job to pass judgment on various piano makes.  It is my
job to make the piano, whether it be a silk purse or a sow's ear, into
the best quality silk purse or sow's ear that that piano can ever be.
I cannot and would not turn every piano into a Mason & Hamlin or a
Weber, two of my personal favorites.  I assure you, many of the sow's
ears have not made it into modern day.  Also the worst quality pianos,
like the spinets, will probably not be restored until such time as they
can bring at sale enough to cover the cost of the work.  Upright
players do that at this time.  Besides, what would the next generation
think if every little 'Podunk' piano had been turned into something it
never had been?  There would be no history in the instrument.

I had a pipe organ technician friend once, who decided that every organ
he worked on had to become the National Cathedral organ.  He wasted
much time doing bids that were not accepted and collecting mountains of
pipes and parts, but no one ever would let him go and build it.  In his
case the frustration, I think, killed him.

> To parrot a original design, you will end up with original >
> performance.  If it was acceptable ... then great!  If you feel it
> lacks something, find out why.  It was a fact that some players
> sounded much better than others.

But I *want* original performance.  Original performance is the ultimate
of what we ALL demand of ourselves.  The original performance is the
ideal.  If it lacks something, fine, it is not your preferred instru-
ment.  To someone else, it may be their ultimate piano.  There is no
such thing as THE ultimate piano, as there is no such thing as the
ultimate person or musical performance.  If that were the not the case,
then there would only need to be one CD made of any musical work.  No
one would ever have to learn that piece of music ever again because the
ultimate recording has been made.

I prefer having hundreds of different performances to listen to of any
particular work of music, and I like having hundreds of different
brands of piano all having their particular tone quality from which to
choose.  I like many different brands of piano.  Even though I love
Weber, if everything sounded like my Weber, then what a monotonous
world it would be.

D. L. Bullock     Piano World    St. Louis