Piano and Music Videos

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin and this is LivingPianos.com. Today’s question is, “Should You Lock Your Piano?” You might notice that some pianos have little keyholes on them. Oftentimes, when we sell restored vintage pianos, people ask if we have the key. I’m not talking about the 88 keys you play, but they want the key for the lock! So the question is, should you lock your piano?

Will locking your piano protect it against vandals?

You might think that there are some times when it would be really important to lock your piano. For example, let’s say you have a piano in a school or a church and you’re worried that people will abuse the instrument, so you want to lock it to prevent any damage. Well, the fact of the matter is, the locks that are built into pianos are not very robust and they’re easily jimmied open. So it doesn’t adequately protect your piano in a situation like that. What about at home?

Will children damage a piano left unlocked?

Maybe you have kids banging on your piano and you think they’re going to damage the instrument. But kids, even if they use their fists, are not going to damage a piano! When a concert pianist is playing, the energy they exert is much greater than a child is capable of even with their fists. Children are not going to damage your piano by doing that. (Just make sure they don’t approach your piano with any metal objects.) So locking your piano for that reason is pointless. Now there might be one good reason to lock your piano.

Locking your piano keeps people from playing it.

If the sound of your kids banging on your piano is driving you nuts and you can’t get them to use their fingers on the piano appropriately, then maybe there’s a good reason to lock it. Otherwise, I think pianos should be open for people to play. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is for me if I find a piano somewhere and it’s locked. I am always heartbroken. I think pianos are meant to be played!

How do all of you feel about this. Do you lock your piano? You can leave your comments and we can discuss further about this.

Thanks so much for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time!

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin and today’s question is, “How Do You Find the Serial Number on Your Piano?” There are a number of reasons why you might want to know your piano’s serial number. The piano’s age, along with its condition, and any repair work done to it will affect its value. You need to know this if you’re considering buying or selling your piano, or for an insurance claim or charitable tax deduction. You might also need to know the serial number for a bill of sale, insurance rider, warranty claim or moving or storage receipt. The serial number determines the age of your piano. Once you find it, you can reference the Pierce Piano Atlas, which has all the piano brands with the serial numbers, so you can determine when your Piano was built.

Where can you find the serial number on your piano?

If you look inside your piano at the plate, you may find a date and think your work is done. But it’s not so simple. In fact, the date of manufacture is never stamped on a piano. These dates usually refer to prizes that were won or patents that were awarded, but never the date of manufacture. So you’ve got to dig a little bit deeper. If you’re looking at a grand piano, the first place to look is under the music rack. You can simply slide the music rack out towards you. Underneath, usually on the left hand side on the plate, you’ll see a series of numbers. That can very well be the serial number of your piano. Reference the Pierce Atlas, and you’re done. But sometimes, you’ll see two sets of numbers or even more. It can be very confusing.

There are other numbers you may encounter.

Model numbers generally are letters and sometimes they have numbers in them. So, if you see a letter followed by a bunch of numbers, the first letter might just be the model, followed by the serial number. Over on the right hand side, you might see less digits. This could be an in house numbering system they used when they were manufacturing the piano, or sometimes it’s an artist number for concert grand pianos. Suppose the piano has been regilded, that is, the plate has been painted over. Does that mean you can’t figure out the serial number? Well, the good news is, pianos almost always have the serial number in more than one place. And the serial number isn’t always found on the plate.

There are several other places a serial number can be found.

Sometimes the serial number is stamped into the soundboard, usually towards the front of the piano. Look at the soundboard and you might see numbers. I’ve seen it on the back of the soundboard or even in the rim of the piano, under where the lid lifts up. Like I say, sometimes it takes a lot of detective work to find the serial number on your piano! Now, suppose you look all over the place inside the piano, but you still don’t see it. Well, then you have to go a little bit further.

Something you can do on your own that’s not that hard, is to take the key slip off in front of the keys. Some pianos, it just lifts out. Others might have several screws underneath you take out. Carefully lift up the key slip. You’ll may see the serial number on the key slip itself stamped into the wood. Or it could possibly be on the key frame of the action of the piano. No luck? You still have some possibilities. You can check underneath the piano. Take a flashlight under the piano and look around. Typically, it will be behind the pedal lyre on the piece of wood behind the pedal assembly. But I’ve seen it in other places down there. Sometimes, even on the bottom of the soundboard!

You might want help from a piano technician.

If you haven’t found the serial number yet, you may want to have your piano technician look for it, because you can potentially damage the piano taking it apart yourself. Your piano technician can possibly find the serial number by removing the action and taking out the cheek block screws on the ends of the piano. Once the key slip has been removed, the fallboard can sometimes lift out. But with older pianos, the fallboard is attached to the cheek blocks and this can be tricky to take out because they can fall off. This is why you should use a piano technician. The serial number is oftentimes stamped on the cheek blocks. If you still can’t find the serial number, then you can have your piano technician pull the whole action out a bit. The serial number might be stamped somewhere else on the action. If not, have your piano technician pull the action out completely, put it safely on a piano bench or a table, and hunt inside the piano with a flashlight to find the serial number.

You didn’t think this was going to be so complicated, did you? Well, the good news is, most of the time it’s not. Generally the serial number is on the plate, but now you have some resources just in case it’s not there.

Are there pianos with no serial number at all?

Yes, this can happen when a manufacturer puts the serial number on the plate or another part of the piano that has been replaced. If the plate was regilded or the soundboard was replaced, you might have no way of determining the serial number, or even the manufacturer of a piano! On some stencil pianos, that is OEM pianos that are produced by third party manufactures, it’s all but impossible to figure out not just a serial number, but even the make of a piano!

Where is the serial number found on upright pianos?

Most often the serial number on upright pianos will be right in the front. Open up the top and look inside. If you don’t see it there, you can look around back and sometimes you’ll see the serial number stamped in the back of the piano.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. Today’s topic is, “How Long Does a Piano Last?” This is a really fascinating subject, and there’s more to it than you might imagine.

There are many considerations for how long a piano will last.

The quality of the instrument, the environment where the instrument lives, how much the instrument is played, and the how often the piano is serviced, all enter into how long a piano lasts. These are all factors that contribute to the wear and tear of a piano. If I was to throw out a number, I’d say a fine piano can last 50 to 100 years. But could a piano really last that long? It depends. You couldn’t expect to buy a bottom tier Chinese or Indonesian piano, subject it to a harsh climate, play it for hours a day, and for it to last anywhere close to 50 years without major work. But well built and properly maintained pianos can last generations.

We see some older instruments in immaculate condition.

Right now at Living Pianos, the oldest piano we currently have is a Steinway concert grand built in 1875. The piano has been masterfully rebuilt, so it plays like it did when it was young.

You can click on this link to see the piano:
Steinway

The record for the oldest piano we ever had with all original parts was a 1907 Steinway Model O. We had two of our technicians go through this piano inside and out, determining that absolutely everything was original. Nothing was worn. Because it was a Steinway, if it needed new strings or new hammers or anything else, we would have put the work into it. But it was determined that we would just be replacing perfectly good parts.

How can a piano last so long?

If you have a piano here in Southern California and it’s in a stable environment, kept closed, away from sunlight, stable temperature, stable humidity, barely ever played, and tuned on a regular basis, indeed, a piano could be a hundred years old and play like new. Of course, for every piano like that, there are tens of thousands that are long since gone. There is no set amount of time that a piano will last. You have to know the history of the instrument.

How do you find the history of a piano?

Pianos don’t have a paper trail like cars or houses do. You have to do some simple detective work. Just look inside the piano for signs of corrosion around the strings and pins. Look at the hammers to see how much felt is left on them. Wiggle the keys. If they make a clicking sound, that means the felt bushings are worn. So pianos could be worn out. They can also get thrashed from the environment, and they can be neglected. If a piano hasn’t been tuned for 5, 10 or 15 years, it can take its toll when you tune it since it could add thousands of pounds of string tension compromising the structure of the piano.

The year of manufacturer tells you very little about how long that piano is going to last.

If a piano is kept in a harsh environment it will age much faster. If a piano is kept near the beach, it could be rusted out. In a school or restaurant, a piano might be worn out in as little as 10 years from heavy use. And yet, there are pre-World War II pianos in immaculate condition. Certainly with rebuilt pianos, it doesn’t necessarily matter how old they are. If the fundamental structure is good and the rebuilding work was top quality, a rebuilt piano can last as long as a new piano. You may get another 50 to 100 years out of a well rebuilt piano! Your mileage may vary. And that is the message for today.

If any of you are wondering about the condition of your piano we can help you. Write to us at: info@livingpianos.com.

Thanks for joining us here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
949-244-3729

Hi, I’m Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “How Long Does it Take to Rebuild a Piano?”

There’s a very wide range of time, and there are many aspects to this question. Let’s say you have a piano you want to have rebuilt. Perhaps you have a Steinway, you want to have restored and you decide to send it to Steinway to rebuild. You’re probably going to wait over a year to get your piano back. It can take that long! Now, does that mean they’re taking the entire year to rebuild it? Well, yes and no. They might do parts of different pianos simultaneously. However:

It takes at least months to rebuild a piano.

Now, the other aspect of this question is, what does it mean to rebuild a piano? There are different parts of a piano that can be rebuilt. For example, are you replacing the sound board or repairing the old one? Are you creating a new key set, or are you staying with the original keys? There are different parts of a piano that can be utilized in rebuilding in most instances. Unless you have a piano that’s a complete disaster, you’re going to utilize a lot of the existing parts, so it can take different amounts of time depending upon how much work is required.

Let’s say, for example, you have an unusual piano from the late 1800s with a pre-modern action and it’s an art-case with beautiful scroll work, and some of the scroll work is missing. Perhaps other parts of the piano are destroyed as well, such as the music rack or one of the legs. It could take a very long time to match the woods, to hand-carve the beautiful intricate parts to make the piano match the way it was originally manufactured.

It could take longer than a year.

But I would say that any kind of even the most basic rebuilding that keeps the original action and replaces only some action parts, replaces strings, perhaps pin block, refinish the case, re-guild the plate, has got to take an absolute minimum of two to three months, if that’s all they’re working on. It is a big job. Not only that, you don’t want to rush through it because a piano needs to settle in, and a great part of the work of rebuilding a piano comes after the rebuilding in adjusting everything to play on a high level. On top of that, it’s important to make sure everything is stable.

If a piano has just been rebuilt and hasn’t had fine work performed, it will sound horrendous!

It takes tremendous refinement to get a rebuilt piano to play on a high level. It’s best to let the piano sit, play it, and have technicians work on it, and, of course, even over the next year or two, a rebuilt piano, just like a brand-new piano, is not going to be really settled in and stable for at least a year or two. You must play the piano and have it serviced on a very regular basis until it becomes stable.

So it’s all part of the process. I hope this has been helpful for you. If you have a piano you’re thinking of rebuilding and you want any advice, you’re welcome to contact us here at info@livingpianos.com. Thanks again. I’m Robert Estrin. We’ll see you next time.

949-244-3729

This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com with a really interesting topic for you today: Secrets of Piano Voicing. Did you know that the voicing on the piano is intrinsically different depending upon what volume you are playing? The balance between the notes in your hands is different when playing loud compared to playing softly.

Here’s how it works. When you’re putting a lot of energy into playing loud on the piano, you can play everything strong and the melody will come right through for you. When you play softly though, you have to delineate the melody notes or they get lost. In the featured video, I demonstrate with the Chopin 20th prelude, which has fortissimo as well as pianissimo sections. When playing loudly, you can play with equal volume. Yet, you will easily be able to discern the top melody notes. On the accompanying video, I play everything equal volume of all the notes in the chords of both hands.

The next section is quiet. I play softly, but equal volume of all the notes as I did playing forte in the previous phrase. But at the softer volume, the melody gets lost.

While there is more than one way to bring out melodies in piano playing, typically they are found on the top line of music. If you reach with the top fingers, you can delineate the melody. For the sake of this presentation, I am bringing out the melody of the top line while playing quietly.

It creates a beautiful sound! On the next section which is even softer, you will hear the performance first playing all the notes with equal volume. Unlike when playing loud, the melody is lost when playing the notes equal volume at softer volumes. When playing softly and bringing out the top notes the balance is very pleasing.

Now, what’s great about this lesson is that you can try this with all your music and discover the more quietly you play, the more exaggerated the difference between melody and harmony must be because of the natural acoustics of the piano. When you play loud, you can hear everything clearly playing all notes at equal volume.

But the quieter you play, the more focus you must bring to the melody.

I hope this has been helpful to you. This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. Thanks so much for joining me.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

This is LivingPianos.com and I am Robert Estrin with a great subject today, Unique Problems with Steinway Pianos.

Steinway pianos are the de facto standard in the concert world.

In fact, it’s the only company left that still supports the concert market with concert grands in virtually all major cities in the world. This is an arduous task when you consider the cost of each one is in the six figures! Steinway in different periods of time had problems and I’m going to bring up two of them today.

Fortunately, Steinway pianos being manufactured today do not suffer from either of these problems.

I want to let you know that right out of the gate. But early in the 20th century, Steinway had an idea of a way that they could make actions last longer and be less susceptible to corrosion. They used a solution containing paraffin on their actions. If you ever looked at old Steinway pianos or sat down at an old Steinway that’s been neglected, it may have played like a truck. You can look inside and the hammers go up and down very gradually. There’s no speed. Everything’s gummed up. You can actually see green in all the little felt bushings of all the hundreds of action parts on each key. That is an example of vertebrae.

Verdigris is a condition in which a piano action becomes corroded.

This paraffin solution had exactly the opposite effect of the intention that Steinway had in avoiding corrosion. Unfortunately, in certain environments, the actions would gum up like crazy! Sometimes it’s possible to get things moving by treating the action parts with different chemicals. However, with really severe verdigris, all you can do is rebuild the action with all new parts.
Sometimes you can replace center pins if it’s not a really bad problem. You can also try lubricating. But oftentimes problems will recur. With humidity, the air gets inside the piano. You might think you’ve got the problem solved and everything’s moving nicely. Then, a month later, it starts gumming up again. So that’s one problem of early 20th-century Steinways.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about vertigris on newer Steinway pianos.

The second problem was in Steinway’s CBS era when they experimented with something else that sounded like a great idea. The thousands of felt parts in actions wear out and are susceptible to humidity. So, Steinway engineers thought about utilizing Teflon.

From around 1968 to 1982 Steinway used Teflon in their piano actions.

What’s wrong with this? I’m a believer that oftentimes there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. However, the problems that plagued them is that some pianos that went to extreme environments the wood would swell and contract with the weather. Of course, Teflon is hard. This created space between the Teflon and the wood creating noise in the actions. Sometimes, rebuilding the actions are necessary for these circumstances. However, I will say this:

The vast majority of the time, the biggest problem with Teflon actions, is finding technicians who know how to service them properly.

Oftentimes Teflon itself isn’t the problem. Using slightly larger center pins can sometimes solve the problem if the Teflon is worn. However, Teflon is very robust and can last many, many years. Teflon is not necessarily a problem. In fact, if I was buying a Steinway piano from that era and it had Teflon and there were no problems, I wouldn’t be concerned. Now, it doesn’t mean there would never be problems. But you know what? It doesn’t matter what piano you have, things will require servicing eventually and parts will wear out if you play a good deal.

That’s the long and short of Teflon. It was something they tried and they eventually gave up the practice. The idea of piano actions that don’t wear out so quickly is a very appealing idea and I applaud them for trying something. If you have a piano with Teflon, if it isn’t giving you problems, you should be fine. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. As long as it’s functioning well, you’re in good shape.

Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store. Keep the questions coming in! info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729