UK Piano Page Piano Forum

chrisw

Well done for transforming your piano into something that plays and sounds exactly as you want it to do. You are absolutely correct that we pianists are indebted to our local tuner technicians for keeping our instruments in tip top condition. Coincidently my piano was new in 1994 and I spent my care...

chrisw

I am afraid I cannot comment on the action of these pianos but hopefully a tuner technician will reply to give you the advice that you need. I have an acquaintance who has attended a piano teacher that placed her new Steinway in a conservatory, albeit the conservatory had been designed to house a pi...

chrisw

There is an entry in Wikipedia which says they were established in 1956 and were exporting pianos to the USA by the year 2000. I think if the Steinbach has an action that your son likes and is backed up by the three year guarantee it is likely to be ok. I'm sorry that I don't have personal experienc...

chrisw

I think you also need to throw into the mix the reputation of the dealer and if they come from different dealers which dealer is more likely to look after you should something go wrong. You could consider making contact with a local independent tuner to assess the condition of each piano before you ...

chrisw

Bravo. Please explain how you achieved this performance.

chrisw

I'm not tempted to get the black and white paint out to reverse the key colours on my upright ! I have enough trouble distinguishing between the natural notes as it is.

chrisw

Have seen organs and perhaps a harpsichord with reverse colour keys but don't recall seeing a piano.

chrisw

IF 69640 is a Kemble serial number it suggests the date of manufacture is 1939.

chrisw

I have never heard of Essenfelder and to my mind the piano in the photograph is rather older than post 1970. One of the other correspondents to this forum may be able to give you a more accurate date. I have owned a Kemble Classic for 25 years and can assure you they are suitable for a learner from ...

chrisw

I liked the second version of Rule Britannia. The words do not always start on the first beat of the bar. In fact the first word of the first verse starts on the fourth beat. Other lines start on the last quaver of the bar. The chorus on the other hand starts on the first beat and this is clearly he...

chrisw

Hello vladimirdounin, I have listened to three of the recordings this evening, all three being music to songs. With one of these I had a simplified score at hand and this was the first I listened to, Paul Anka's My Way. Speaking as a trained scientist who plays piano a little, I found the second rec...

chrisw

Thanks for your message. I will have another listen tomorrow. I am more comfortable listening to Youtube recordings rather than web sites I have never heard of. Sorry about the reference to songs. I did recognise that there were some songs in your list. Even a person speaking on the BBC tonight desc...

chrisw

Sorry but there are just too many recordings here to know 'what is what' and I am probably not a good enough pianist and musician to discern differences in interpretation or potential mistakes. I am interested to know however why people call pieces of music songs when there were never any words to b...

chrisw

Thanks for posting the video of another competent performance by your daughter. This is a piece I do not know but seems to have its fair share of ornaments which were well carried out. I also liked how the volume of the left hand part was controlled.

chrisw

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... goes-viral

chrisw

Looks like you forgot to post the link but I think I found it on your YouTube channel. I don't know this piece but I liked the way you played it.

chrisw

Yorkshire is a big county. If the piano is near Skipton you could contact Yorkshire pianos.

http://www.yorkshirepianos.com

If it is more west than Skipton it may be in Barrie Heaton's area.

chrisw

I wouldn't be keen on messing about with the steel strings besides the copper covered. Always a chance of getting them contaminated leading to stress corrosion cracking.

chrisw

I think it is difficult to comment on interpretations of piano music when viewed using computer media. For one thing I can't judge the dynamics. I did see your interpretation of the Mozart K545 and concluded that you had put in a lot of effort to learn it, probably much more than I did.

chrisw

The cabinet looks to be in very good condition and appears to have a rosewood veneer.
It is straight strung and has an over damped action. The serial numbers for Spencer pianos are listed on various websites and 48722 puts it between 1905 and 1910.

chrisw

Well done for making this video. I am not a teacher or graduate musician and indeed not much of a Chopin fan so I am afraid there is little I can say. I do have a book of the Chopin preludes however so I have just played through the piece a couple of times but I don't think for a number of reasons t...

chrisw

Very well done for memorising and playing this piece. It is a piece that I have played myself on a number of occasions although there was no way I could do it without the score. Many years ago I had a crisis of playing and concluded I couldn't play piano and gave up attending an adult college class ...

chrisw

Nice to make your acquaintance, Pianist685.

chrisw

Well done for achieving something that I have not. If I might comment on the first minute of music I wonder if you mean to include an accelerando, or am I hearing a quickening of tempo that is not there. Also in the first minute it seems to me that it would be worth really hearing what the left hand...

chrisw

Thank you. I must give this composer further investigation.

chrisw

Fur Elise is a piece that I have never learnt. I was given an old copy of the score last year, an Augener edition, ominously revised, phrased and fingered by O. Thumer. However it does have E's in measure 7.

chrisw

Harrods may have closed their piano department but they are still willing to provide information they have from their stock books. In August last year a friend wrote to them about the Bechstein grand that is kept in a local library. It had been supplied as a used piano by Harrods in 1946.

chrisw

Well played by both performers. Accompanying a violin is something that I like to do but I fear my playing is not as effective as your daughter's. Tone of the violin was very nice indeed.

chrisw

An interesting article David and worthy of reply. I can accept your thesis that a piece of music may sound more alive if played in the temperament appropriate at the time of composition but the notion that interest is being lost and/or the universal use of equal temperament is responsible for the de...

chrisw

Barrie, How do these lifesavers work ? For example do they use an electrical heating element when humidity is too high and evaporate water when humidity is too low ? How often do you have to top up the water reservoir ? What safeguards does it have in case the built in hygrometer goes out of calibra...

chrisw

Sorry to hear that the snow is preventing you from reaching your clients. We have had just a few degrees of frost here on the coast. The specs are helping, not only is the music clearer but they are also enabling me to read forward. The biggest problem with my eyes now is astigmatism which I think i...

chrisw

We had wet snow on Tuesday in Lancaster and with the wind it caused me to get quite wet when I ventured into town. Should have put off the trip until a drier day but the optician had phoned to say my music reading spectacles were ready and I couldn't wait. That is a very impressive itinerary. If you...

chrisw

Do you have any snow on the hills Barrie ?

chrisw

"Bomb proof" is a very wise approach.

I play for a piano club once a month and like to play one or sometimes two new pieces each time. Therefore I play from music and have a 50% chance of making a reasonable job, at least to my satisfaction.

chrisw

I am probably older than you suspect Barrie ! Fortunately and so far I've just been very lucky. I didn't fit stays onto the second music desk but the wood is thick enough to accommodate them if needed. I did cover the surface of the horizontal shelf with black felt and parts of the assembly I create...

chrisw

Update to this thread. I have been making a second bespoke piano music desk but alas didn't take photographs before delivering to a friend. Very similar appearance apart from I finished it in matt black and it's purpose was to increase the height of music on a Yamaha U3. My friend is rather tall and...

chrisw

Gill the Piano, do you not play a piece of music after tuning a piano ? If so there must be some owners that are listening to you.

chrisw

Well done to you both. I have played this piece and there is no way I could memorise it. Last time I played it in front of an audience I somehow got lost half way down the first page but kept it going and found a place I could pick it up again. I also make loads of mistakes when I play for other peo...

chrisw

Barrie Heaton wrote: ↑
30 Dec 2018, 12:53

Good job I am not looking after a Nuclear reactor

Barrie

That was my job. However with my lifelong interest in furniture making and woodworking in general I now realise I could have been equally happy in the piano trade.

chrisw

Well learnt and played. The piano looks immaculate. Must get back to my own practice today after a few days of being rather too busy !

chrisw

I have a DVD made at the Kemble factory in Milton Keynes in 2004 which runs for 11 minutes. It is not marked as copyright material so I have wondered if it could be loaded onto Youtube. However I only have one machine which plays DVDs and there doesn't seem to be a facility to save it as a file whic...

chrisw

I sometimes wonder if a veneered (laminated) soundboard would be less affected by humidity swings as they could be constructed using waterproof glue.

chrisw

Last week humidity levels fell to a low level due to cold dry weather. Last Saturday it remained very cold but also extremly wet but I was surprised that humidity did not climb very quickly. Today (Monday) outside temperatures are mild for the time of year and humidity, measured inside the house, ha...

chrisw

Hello Maria, You will find a short history of the Kemble factory here http://kemble-pianos.com/en/history/ I have a Kemble upright piano and like it very much, they were very good English pianos. However if you wish to purchase the piano in the picture I would suggest you have it tested by a qualifi...

chrisw

May seem a silly question but.....when we were moving a grand piano recently one person said we should lift as well as push just to take a little weight from the legs. Is it necessary to slightly lift ? If the answer depends on the floor covering I think the hall was fitted with a durable smooth fel...

chrisw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYMkaNFY1gw

chrisw

Lots of lovely playing at the Morecambe Bay Piano group meeting this afternoon. The next piano group meeting in the north west of England is at Clitheroe, 15 Dec 2018, starting at 1-00pm in the public library.