MJ has to be the most completely talented entertainer of the last 50 years. No, not the best singer, but a complete being of entertainment. To see the passion that he brings, the complete involvement and mastery is inspiring as well as riveting. I’m getting goose bumps watching him flawlessly execute complex dance moves with an ease and facility that is astonishing.

Yes I’m a fan, but I’m biased. This guy is a complete utter professional, immersed with his whole being into his craft and art. It’s a level of involvement and dedication and focus to strive for.

Yes, the guy had issues, but how can he not. He has been in a hot house of visibility his entire life . He probably did not really know how to be a normal person

I could see an opera based on his life….just sayin’.

If you play, a piano is a means of expression, a means of communication. It has been said that a piano is western civilization’s most perfect tool for the communication of emotion. That can be external communication, directed to an audience, or internal, directed only to oneself. It can be a tool of profound exploration or simple time passing, but so can any piano, right?

Yes, of course, but also, no, obviously not. A craft built piano has 2 important qualities; musical range and a story. The range comes from the combination of carefully selected and treated materials and skilled craftsmanship. These elements DO make a difference and even the most casual piano player can tell the difference.

One common experience occurs when a fairly accomplished amateur, somebody who has a reasonable command of a couple pieces and some serious study under their belt, visits a store to try a variety of pianos. This has happened often enough that I no longer consider it a fluke. This person visits various pianos in the room, spending significant time at each piano exploring its capabilities before coming to, in my experience,  the Bosendorfer. After a couple of minutes at the Bosendorfer you can not only hear the change but you can see the light bulb of awareness light up. The same musical phrase is explored over and over, a smile often crosses the face. Afterwards, almost verbatim, the comment is made: “I didn’t know I could play that well”

Their teacher had been trying to get them to explore certain chord voicings, or to shape a phrase in a particular way, but their consumer grade piano just wasn’t up to the task,  it simply  wouldn’t give up the goods. It’s like trying to drive a mini-van in a Formula One race. The problem is that it wasn’t clear that it was the pianos fault…it must be the pianist, right?

Not always.

If a piano is going to be used for a concert with an orchestra, or as a recital piano in a hall with poor acoustics or over 1000 seats, power is important. The simple reality is that the piano must be heard whether one is battling a huge space, an insensitive conductor and orchestra, or uncooperative acoustics.

Many young pianists, striving to make a name for themselves and influenced by some iconic references including Horowitz and Russian school proponents, find themselves striving for power at the expense of color, dynamics and range. The phrase I heard at international piano competitions is that the contestant wants to “pin the ears of the jury to the back wall” as if the jury is there to simply identify  the loudest pianist, or the one that scares them the most. This may be the nature of a circus, action movie or fireworks display, but it is not the nature of music.

Music is a vehicle for expressing emotion. Yes, emotions can be fiery and loud, but they are more often subtle, quiet, like a soft hand on a shoulder rather than a slap in the face.

Is power the only, or even the most important attribute a piano must exhibit? There are 2 other adjectives that are too infrequently used to describe piano tone, but are even more important; color and range. The ability to produce a range of tonal colors is all to often lost on many pianists, for the basic reason that many pianos cannot produce colors, no matter the technique used.  My personal belief is that once you use lacquer as a hardener you destroy a pianos true ability to create color. The fibers that make up hammer felt must be able to move through the voicing process. Once you glue these fibers together with lacquer, the result is simply gradations in volume, not color changes.

A punch in the jaw has more power than a kiss on the cheek. But, which one would you rather have?

It is one of those things that you really have to hear to believe, since piano legs are not given much thought as a tone affecting element. He calls the effect the Resinno effect

Justin showed his legs (I know, it’s funny, but let it go) in the DPA microphone booth at the Audio Engineering Convention in NYC last week. Big success. Shown here is the Royal Ebony set, consisting of 3 legs and custom designed pedal lyre, bench and music desk.

OBE on the left

Had the great pleasure of meeting and tuning for a very famous classical musician recently. His apartment in NYC has a Bosendorfer model 200 that really needed some attention. Casually displayed on the bookshelf were just some of his many awards and honors. Just off to the left was his Kennedy Center Honor, looking like he had just taken it off.

He was a very nice and gracious guy, and a cat lover to boot! With only some exceptions, my experience is that the bigger they are, the better they are.

Speaking of moving on, I’m the new North American distributor for Feurich Pianos. You can learn more by visiting www.feurichusa.com. If you are really interested in the details, be sure to check out the .pdf backgrounders provided there. Or, for that matter, check them out here.

This all was put together during a trip to Gunzenhausen Germany and Vienna in July. I’m really excited to be working with Julius and Ernest!

Ernest Bittner, Julius Feurich and me

I attended a second class by Yamaha on preparing concert pianos. Yamaha has introduced the newest series of their high end concert piano, the CFX, This class was presented by Yoshi Suzuki who recently moved from the Yamaha Artist Services department in NYC to the corporate office in Buena Park CA. While he is now responsible for all aspects of Yamaha piano service in the US, he is really a CF guy at heart, having worked in the CF factory.

While the steps one needs to go through to prepare a piano are pretty well established, it’s the sequence and the details that make up the individual approach by a maker or a technician. Yoshi had a variety of sophisticated and effective tips, including a rather graphic one about buckskin on knuckles.

David Anderson presented a class on using your whole body in piano work. David is a very engaging and thought provoking presenter and succeeds in getting one to look at the profession and activity in a different light. He focused on the impact ones attitude has on the quality of work as well as ways of incorporating different aspects of your physical being in different aspects of piano work. For example he demonstrated that you can effectively set the jack position by sound!  He is also the person who inspired me to pursue the concept of “open unison” tuning, a technique that now has a very comfortable position in my tool kit.

Kansas City is kind of a happening city with an active live music scene that brings crowds down town. It’s also a pretty good beer town so I enjoyed my visit even outside of the convention hall. I did get a chance to catch up with contacts and friends, one in particular and  I even made a couple new friends (imagine that).