RAC
Pianos
01279 792129
Upright Pianos
Grand Pianos
Digital Pianos
© Copyright RAC Pianos 2011 -
RAC Pianos
Longfield Nursery
Epping Road
Roydon
Essex
CM19 5DW
Compare the main brands Yamaha, Kawai, Kemble, Weber and Steinmayer together
Very few showrooms in the UK can offer this
Victorian pianos have lovely cases, but do they make good instruments? What do the
terms over-
Lets look at some second hand piano categories and try to unravel the mysteries.
VERY OLD UPRIGHT PIANOS -
These pianos will often have fret work front panels with silk cloth behind, places for candle sconces (sometimes still attached), and probably the very top lid will be one piece hinged at the back edge. The examples that have survived often look like nice quality pieces of furniture and often have burr wood grain. Occasionally they have turned (grand piano like) legs under the keybed each end of the piano. Musically they are very poor and should be avoided unless you just want to look at them.
OLD UPRIGHT PIANOS -
Pianos at the end of the victorian era can be identified in various ways. They nearly always have candle brackets or evidence of where they were once fitted to the front panel as you can see where the screw holes have been filled in. They often have quite grained wood cases although on the cheaper built pianos this grain is usually false and if you look closely you can see that it has been applied by ink in a glaze the way that modern paint effects are applied to kitchen cupboards etc. Inside the piano you will see that usually the tuning pins are driven into a piece of wood that you can see rather than it being obscured from view by the metal frame, and the metal frame itself stops short and only comes up as far as the bottom edge of this wood (called the pin block or wrest plank). In most cases these pianos will have what is called an overdamped action which can be identified by the vertical damper wires which hang in front of the action (looking like a bird cage) just behind the front panel of the piano. They are attached to the dampers which themselves hang from a flat piece of wood about two inches wide running across the top of the action. You can see this if you lif t the top lid and look down into the piano. In all later under damped pianos you will not be looking down on this piece of wood and instead you will be able to see the felt covered hammers which fly up to strike the strings when a key is pressed, so there can be no mistaking an overdamped action. Quite often (but not always) these pianos will also be straight strung which means that all of the strings including the copper covered bass strings run vertically downwards from the tuning pins.
There are many pianos falling into this category still in existence but they should be avoided if at all possible for the following reasons:
1. Damping a string near its end in this way is inefficient and the notes do not damp quickly and instead often wine to a stop with a sort of oinking sound, even when new felts are fitted. (Some of the old Bluthner upright pianos do actually work quite well as they had huge pads compared with other pianos but most do not)
2. Straight strung pianos tend to have a poor tone in the bass section as these strings run down to a bridge which is in the corner of the soundboard and therefore not in a very good place for sound transference.
3. If the strings are original they will be stiff and tired resulting in poor tone. The piano may well not be tuned up to concert pitch which will also mean a deterioration in tone and may be incapable of being tuned at the correct pitch if the tuning pins themselves are loose which they often are. Even if they are not it may take two pitch raises and several tunings to achieve tuning stability which will cost £200 +
4. If the action is original then it will be pretty well worn out.
Taking into account all of the above these pianos will do little to inspire and maintain the enthusiasm of a once keen student.
OLD UPRIGHT PIANOS -
Much of the above applies to these pianos although the case design is often slightly
different as they usually have a separate square section leg each end of the keyboard
which drops down to a toe sticking out at the bottom of the piano with a castor underneath
it. Whereas the victorian pianos usually have some wood detail under the keyboard
each end of the piano which scrolls back to the piano and then protrudes back out
again to meet the top of the castor toe. Also there may well not be evidence of candle
brackets and the front panel will be plain with perhaps simple square frame panels.
Pianos made during this time are some of the last with the overdamped action (Berry
pianos did carry on until the 1920s but they are about the only exception). Also
when you look inside you may see that the metal frame comes right to the top of the
piano although very often if it does you can still see the wooden wrest plank into
which the tuning pins go -
Some of these pianos make good starter instruments, but only if they are in very good condition which most are not. Unfortunately these days it is not cost effective to spend money restoring these pianos compared with buying a later piano in good condition, so you may be lucky but there are very few good ones around now, and it would be advisable to pay a piano tuner to look at any prospective purchase first.
OLD UPRIGHT PIANOS c1910 to 1939
Piano technology moved on considerably from 1900 to 1920 by which time pianos were made very much as they are made today (i.e. over strung and under damped) and in fact due to the quality of the better pianos of this time some of the best instruments were made in this ‘heyday’ of piano manufacture, particularly the german ones.
Pianos from the 1920s and 1930s will have fairly classic plain cases with over hanging top lids, plain panelled fronts and a separate leg dropping down each end of the keyboard to meet the top of the castor toe sticking out at the bottom. There should be no evidence of candle brackets