I thought I would set down some recollections of Clarence Hickman.
I was lucky enough to meet the great man himself sometime in the early
80's.  Both of us lived in Queens, NY, one of the five boroughs.

Queens is a notoriously hard place to find your way around since it
was not laid out as a grid, like much of Manhattan.  Rather, it seems
that a lot of ancient cow paths from old farms were paved over, and
made into major roads.  The reason I mention this is because when I
phoned Dr. Hickman and asked for directions to his apartment, he was
not sure what the directions were.  Considering that he had been living
in that apartment since the 1920's, you can imagine just how confusing
Queens is!

Hickman lived in a "garden apartment" in Jackson Heights.  That term
refers to the building of a central courtyard with grass and trees to
provide an area for the residents to relax.  I believe the building was
decorated with many Spanish decorating touches that were popular in
that era.  His apartment was fairly large, and immaculately kept.  He
had been a widower for several years.

He was a remarkable physical specimen, as sickly people don't make it
to their nineties.  He mentioned to me that his dentist told him he had
the best 32 teeth the dentist had ever seen in a person of that age.
I asked him how many teeth make up a full set.  Hickman replied "Thirty
two."

We began to talk about his early years, and the first surprise came up
when he recalled working for Robert Goddard, who is considered the
first great pioneer in the development of rockets.  Much of this work
was done in the late teens and early 1920's.  Hickman said that he was
injured when an experimental rocket exploded in his hands, and at that
point he held up his hands.  The explosion had blown off the last joint
in several fingers on both hands.  It is to his credit that he did not
let this affect him seriously for the next 70 years.

I believe he tried to lighten the mood by saying something like,
"It didn't affect my piano playing, because I don't play piano."
I know he did play some instrument, but I have forgotten what it was,
perhaps violin or guitar.  Hickman expressed amazement at people who
can play an instrument without reading sheet music, a feeling I agreed
with.

He recalled tricks that Emse Dawson (she worked in the Roll Editing
Dept.) used to do.  She had perfect pitch, so perfect, in fact, that
Hickman would hit clusters of notes on the keyboard, and Emse would say,
"I hear the B-flat, and the B, and the C, but no D-flat, then I hear
the D, the E-flat but no E," and so on.

Hickman also had stories about Charles Stoddard.  He recalled telling
him that, when the Ampico B went into production, it would have to be
made of better quality materials than the Model A.  Another story was
about a serious disagreement they had on publicity.  Once the Model B
was ready to be released, Stoddard wanted to invite reporters up to the
studio so he could generate publicity.  Stoddard had constructed some
gizmo with knobs on the front and glowing radio tubes on the top.
Stoddard said he was going to tell the reporters that they recorded
the artist's performance with the aid of this impressive looking
contraption.  Hickman told Stoddard that he would play no role (sorry
about that, folks) in such a deception, and Stoddard eventually backed
down.

Another story that stuck in my mind is the time Hickman was walking
through the piano factories looking for ways to make them more
efficient.  He saw a technician sawing a hole in a piece of wood using
a primitive "bow saw", I think it is called.  Imagine a string tied to
both ends of a stick that is maybe two feet long.  Because the string
was pulled taut, the stick bent over and you had something resembling a
violin bow.  The other half of this device was a vertical stick with a
metal tip on it.  The string on the bow was looped over the vertical
stick, and as you held the vertical piece in your left hand, you would
saw back and forth with the bow to make the metal tip drill through the
wood.

Anyhow, when Hickman saw this vestige of the 19th Century, he asked the
old timer why didn't he use a power drill.  The fellow replied that if
you used a power tool on a piano, you would ruin the tone.

Probably the strangest story I heard is when he told me that he once
found some condoms in the desk of somebody in the Ampico labs.  I asked
who it was, but he would not tell me.  I never thought to ask him why
he was going through somebody's desk in the first place.  Incidentally,
has anyone out there seen a Model B sleeve pneumatic?  Don't look at a
drawing -- see one in the flesh.  It's the funniest thing ever, and
I'll bet you can't show it in a "G" rated movie.

I wonder how many readers are aware of the revolutionary piano mechanism
that Hickman invented about this time?  It looks like nothing else you
ever saw, and it is impossible to describe without a diagram, although
I will try in a few sentences:

Imagine a piece, called the "leg", that connects the back of the key to
the hammer shank.  Obviously, as the back of the key rises, the hammer
is pushed toward the string.  At the critical point, a little gizmo
pushes the "leg" in the center, and it folds at the "knee joint",
allowing the proper let off.  Hickman gave me a 30 or 40 page thesis
describing this invention, which I still have.

One feature that he added to these pianos is a sliding brass gizmo that
moves inside the bass key block, and allows the artist to vary the
touch of the instrument.  Incidentally, I am aware of only three pianos
that have this new action.  Two are Mason & Hamlins and the third was
in Hickman's apartment.

A certain amount of controversy exists over this mechanism.  I have
heard opinions that knocking noises can occur, although Hickman
insisted to me that the mechanism doesn't knock.  Perhaps the
technician did not repair the mechanism the way it should have been.
And maybe Hickman didn't work on 50-year-old examples of his invention.
I am not going to try to solve the mystery in this article.

When I entered his apartment, the first thing I noticed was a grand
piano in the living room.  "That is the very first Model B Ampico," he
said.  It was either a Fischer or a Marshall & Wendell.  I noticed it
had the variable touch Hickman action.

I realized that the drawer was not there, and I assumed that some
dedicated collector was rebuilding it.  I asked him where it was.
He said:

"After I left American Piano, I took a job with Bell Labs.  I began to
get annoyed when I would come home and the wife would say, 'Clarence,
the piano isn't working right.'  I would have to get under the piano
and start to test things, and I was always able to figure it out, but
it was annoying.

"One day, I came home and the wife said, 'Clarence, the piano...,'
and I just got so annoyed that I took all the mechanism out and threw
it away."

Randolph Herr