When I looked into restoring my wife’s piano there was hardly any resources to turn to for guidance. Google produced just one person within a 100 mile radius who seemed even remotely qualified. When I contacted him he basically let me know up front that it would be unbelievably expensive and likely not produce the results I was hoping for due to its age and years of neglect.
Apparently many of these old uprights have iron frames that become brittle with age (another reason why they are so damn heavy). Wooden sound boards are even worse if they haven’t been maintained over the years. You can’t just go in there with a wrench and start tightening things. Essentially you have to re-build the sound board entirely with new parts, re-string, tune and balance the whole thing. It may look great on the outside but it’s the innards that makes the difference. Unless it’s a family heirloom or truly a classic model, you will never recoup that investment.
Pianos neglected long enough will eventually fall into a state of disrepair where fixing it would cost nearly as much as making a new one. For a rare vintage valuable vintage piano it might make sense to restore it, but several million pianos have been made since 1900 (the US alone bought some quarter of a million pianos in the first quarter of the 20th century) and it would be unrealistic to restore them all. This fate is far preferable than the dump.
A very good question and one I’ve pontificated over many a time as a recovering SteamPunk.
For any given mass produced object, there will be some small segment that has particular collector value. But the vast lot of vintage mass produced objects have no value outside what the current owner gives it. The problem is discerning the former from the latter.
A segment of people do not see the distinction (or are not truly aware) of these two groups and so anything built before Year X must be preserved at all cost. So they see the desecration of any vintage good as sacrilege. Alternately, there are those who see anything as Old as being old and therefore rubbish or only fit for parts.
Then there is a third group. Those who see a vintage product of yester year and attempt to ascertain which of the groups the object belongs to and proceed from there.
Truly, my only complaint with the piano in this post is that there was so much more that could be done.
Yep. I ask myself- Is it repairable? Is it restorable? Was it quality in its day? Is it still useful? A crap radio or a department store bicycle can wind up under my saw even if they are fifty years old. A transistor Magnavox console radio can die but a Grundig or even good Fisher will get extra efforts to save.
Music lessons assigned as character building. None of these kids were going to grow up to become professional pianists, but they were going to grow up to be the type of people who played piano. It’s a skill that shows a cultured upbringing. Plus, maybe at a cocktail party one could bang out a Cole Porter number or two? I don’t know, I don’t get invited to many cocktail parties, and don’t even know if cocktail parties are still a thing
I can play a little bit, and I credit this to a total lack of piano lessons. I learned to play by ear from recordings, because I listened to a lot of music. I can just barely read music, but I can pick stuff up by ear pretty easily. [quote=“Donald_Petersen, post:36, topic:91922”]
But man, nearly everyone I know owns at least one guitar. Sure, they’re a much, much more modest investment than any new acoustic piano, but guitar playing (with or without lessons) up to the point of joining a band was more popular than piano lessons even when I was in high school
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Guitars are fun, portable, and more closely associated with free spirited music making than rigorous classical study. That’s why. However, a lot of people own guitars, but I know few who can play them competently. I know almost nobody who plays guitar well who hasn’t studied music in some form or another, even if they might not have had formal guitar lessons.
I’m a fan of all types of music, so I like classical as well as rock. On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of regimented music lessons for the sole purpose of proving one comes from the “right” socioeconomic class.
I just made the graph, I didn’t make the numbers! (The original source is apparently the American Music National Piano Foundation and Conference and the National Association of Music Merchants.)
At one time nearly everyone I knew owned a slide rule. That was probably more a statement about the people I knew than about the penetration of slide rules in American households.
Fine, the numbers are insane, and the chart is a perfectly clear representation of those numbers
I know plenty of people who can’t play guitar outside of a few chords they’ve memorized and a couple simple songs, but still own a guitar. They don’t have guitars because they studied or even particularly like music, they just think playing a guitar makes them seem cool or attractive or whatever. It’s more about the feeling than the actual sounds that come out, and I’m fine with that.
I’ve known plenty of people who had slide rules as well, but that was because they were required for class. My parents had slide rules and they weren’t exactly math geeks. Hell, Sam Cooke had one and he didn’t even know what it was for!
I’m not torn at all. This is an atrocity.
If the piano is going to die, let it die with dignity.
If the US admits a 51st state and all the American flags need to be updated, will American patriots use their old flags as cleaning rags, because that’s better than being useless?
What do you expect Catholics in Austria to do with their surplus monstrances and other liturgical devices now that church attendance has been declining for some time?
If modern medicine can’t keep a human alive, should we make a sculpture from their bones?
It would be in poor taste to do that with someone who didn’t consent, but I think it would be kind of awesome if someone made a sculpture out of my bones, after I am dead.
[quote]I know plenty of people who can’t play guitar outside of a few chords they’ve memorized and a couple simple songs, but still own a guitar. They don’t have guitars because they studied or even particularly like music, they just think playing a guitar makes them seem cool or attractive or whatever. It’s more about the feeling than the actual sounds that come out, and I’m fine with that.
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Seriously though, that’s what I like about bbs - in most other places I would be shouted down for daring to make an exaggerated/tasteless/whatever comparison. Here, people are ready to think outside the box.
Well, no… I don’t think it was necessarily the result of a parental urge to make their kids seem cultured as such, not in my neck of the woods. Music lessons in general were thought to enhance a child’s ability to appreciate and enjoy music, whether or not the neighbors were impressed by how this knowledge and skill made the kid classier. And at least one of the kids I grew up with did indeed go pro, playing with the local symphony at 12 and still teaching and composing and performing 30 years later.
But the point was never an urge to show off so much as it was considered an enriching part of child development, and the actual choice of instrument was secondary. My peers were mostly blue-collar, semirural southern Californians, and those who typically took piano lessons were the ones whose households already contained pianos. My sister played flute and sax, I played guitar, my buddy Aaron did trumpet, Tim played drums, etc. The only guy I knew who possibly took up the piano because his parents thought it might serve him well at cocktail parties was Trevor, and as it turned out, they were probably right. By 12th grade, he was quite an ivory-tickler.
However, a lot of people own guitars, but I know few who can play them competently. I know almost nobody who plays guitar well who hasn’t studied music in some form or another, even if they might not have had formal guitar lessons.
We know very different people, it seems.
On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of regimented music lessons for the sole purpose of proving one comes from the “right” socioeconomic class.
I wouldn’t be either, but I never came across that particular attitude in my trailer park. Nor even later on, when we moved to a regular tract house without wheels underneath it. I have no doubt there exist circles in which a solid music education is a signifier of taste and privilege, but (especially before Proposition 13 laid waste to it all) I’m used to it being an ordinary facet of a public school education.
