In this short informal video I perform a crucial sound check on a Stroud baby grand piano undergoing complete restoration. This provides me with a baseline for tuning and regulation.
I’ve just taken the piano in, and as you can see it’s got all the furniture removed, the top’s taken off, the fall’s out, the music desk removed, so you can see the internals. And I’m just going to run through it now just so I have in my middle ear, as it were, a memory of how it is, now, compared to how it will be when it has all-new strings, tuning pins, damper felts, hammers, and it’s regulated and tuned to A=440. I’m just going to run through it quickly now.
Tim Hendy, 24 October 2013
Video by Charles Ryder and Tim Hendy.
In this video I show how the modern upright piano action works. Using a full scale model, I demonstrate the piano mechanism including actions of key, hammer, damper, damper rest rail, balance hammer, check, lever and jack, concluding with concise recommendations for piano maintenance.
So there you have it. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Tim Hendy
Video by Tim Hendy.
Countryside pursuits: using an immense homemade and rather ugly trebuchet to hurl an old upright piano across the fields. Not much happens at the beginning, so stick with it, it’s worth the wait.
Extracts from The Art of Piano documentary with Glenn Gould playing (and singing) J. S. Bach’s Partita No. 2 in atmospheric black and white.
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