KEYS & MISCELLANEOUS
(Page updated March 2019)
This page is for piano subjects that don’t fit conveniently into any of the other page headings, starting with various items about keys. If you don’t find what you are looking for on the Index Menu, email…
ORIGINS OF THE KEYBOARD
Centuries ago, at a time in history when there was no possibility of communication across the world, many different people in different countries were making music and using very similar groups of notes, in which some notes were twice as far apart in pitch as others. This became known as a Natural Scale because it presumably arose naturally in the minds of people who didn’t know each other. However, the keyboard as we know it did not exist, and some of the earliest organ keyboards were too clumsy to be operated by a single finger.
Later, some organs were equipped with just the “Natural” notes, which we think of as white notes. In order that the organist could tell which notes were which, the first note was marked A, and the 8th note sounded similar, but higher, so that was also A, and the pattern repeated. At the time, minor scales were more common, and these notes formed an A minor scale.
The first black note was added was added in order to make it possible to play an F major scale, and this involved placing a note between each A and B, so it was known as B flat and marked with a small letter b. This later became the symbol for all flat notes. Because the notes had been named from A to G, there was also a case for calling those extra notes H instead of B flat, and this can still be seen in some modern German instruments such as Melodicas.
The chromatic scale we are used to, with 5 black notes, was starting to be used in clavichords by the 1300s. The white notes represent a C major scale. The keyboard compass (range) of Cristofori’s 1709 pianos was only 4 octaves, or 49 notes, from C to C. Some of his later instruments had a few more notes at either end. To arrive at the number of notes from the number of octaves, multiply by 12 and then add 1.
I think it is fair to say that square piano keyboards remained within 5 octaves (61 notes) until about 1790. It is important to realise that most of the “great” composers such as Mozart had only 5 octaves to work with, little more than the vocal range of a choir. It is possible to make good music within 3 octaves, but it is somewhat restricting. At that time, some of their keyboards had what modern eyes would call reverse-coloured keys, like clavichords and harpsichords, and some Italian makers may have continued like this into the 1830s, although most others were gone by the 1800s.
The Piano Pavilion in Westcliff has a Broadwood “Patent Boudoir Model” made in 1844, with a keyboard compass (range) of 73 notes (6 octaves) F-F. The 6-octave pianos we see outside museums are more often from the 1930s to the 1970s, and were unlikely to be found much before 1820.
The typical range of a cottage piano until the 1870s was 82 notes from C to A, but opinions varied about how this should be defined in terms of octaves, and although it is really 6¾ octaves, it was often described as 6⅞ octaves.
By the 1870s, I think it is fair to say that most cottage pianos had 7 octaves, or 85 notes A-A, which is now the commonest range for old pianos. Some French makers had already been using 7 octaves for forty years then.
SAILING THE SEVEN Cs
Seven octaves is the most common range for old British and European pianos. In spite of so many websites, newspapers, quizzes etc. saying 88 is the standard number of notes, 85 is by far the most common in British homes, although some people imagine it is strange or even "rare".
Piano keyboards do not normally go beyond 88 notes A to C. I was selling new pianos with 85 notes in the 1960s, 88 notes was a sort of optional extra, not that there was any particular need to have 88, how many pieces of music even use those top 3 notes?
Around 1920, Cramers’ Drawing Room grand went down to G, 2 extra notes, making 90 notes.
In 1909, Bosendorfer made their Imperial grand pianos, with 97 notes, or 8 octaves from C to C. Those very low notes are of very little practical use, and you can Click Here to judge for yourself. My recording starts by running down what is usually the bottom octave, then after a pause, the extra 9 notes below what is usually the bottom A.
In Australia, Stuart & Sons recently made a grand with 108 notes, and described it as a “full nine octaves” but technically it isn’t, because they didn’t give it a top C. Nevertheless, its top notes are vibrating over SEVEN THOUSAND times a second! Wayne Stuart kindly sent me a recording, and although ordinary laptop speakers may not do justice to the low range, I am sure you will hear the brilliance of the top notes…
In the sixties, some were still made with only 6 octaves F-F (73 notes), because although they were nearly as expensive to make as 7-octave models, they were small enough to be more convenient for small modern homes. Makers included Barratt & Robinson, Bentley, Berry, Danemann, Kemble, Lindner, Rogers, and Zender.
Around 1880-1925, when the majority of British pianos were made in Camden, some makers were producing small “Student” uprights with short keyboards, sometimes only 5 octaves, (61 notes F-F) – little more than the vocal range of a choir - on the basis that it was “sufficient for all the works of the great classical composers”. In the late 1800s, Cookes of Norwich made their “Midget” piano, with only 4 octaves (49 notes F-F). It is possible to make good music in just 3 octaves, you can buy electronic keyboards like this, but it is very limiting.
As recently as 1975, Kemble made this oblique-strung portable piano, which had only 5 octaves (61 notes C-C) and saved bulk by being off the floor on stands. These were also sold as “Cramer” or “Brinsmead”.
In 1879, Bartholomeo Grassi Landis made a strange adaptor that sits on a normal keyboard, and converts it to a peculiar arrangement which has alternate black and white notes, described as “cromatique”.
John Trotter had patented a similar keyboard layout in 1811, in which C, D & E are black notes, and C# & D# are white notes.
Ron Reno wrote to me about his 1910 Kohler & Campbell upright, which has another strange keyboard. Most of the notes that would normally be black are brown, and only the C#s are black. The white notes extend behind them as well as in front. After the bottom A, the A# is brown, then there are 2 white notes, B & C, then a black C#, then 2 white notes, then brown, and so on. Of course, the normal irregular arrangement of black notes is the means by which a pianist knows which notes he is playing, so it is difficult to understand the point of this arrangement, and this is the only example I have seen in half a century of research.
JANKO’S MULTI-TIER KEYBOARD
I’m sure you know what it is like when a familiar page on your computer is updated, and becomes unrecognisable, but what if they did it to your piano keyboard? In 1882, Paul von Janko introduced a multi-tiered keyboard which aimed to rationalise the octave layout into 2 sets of 6 notes, by applying simple logic. On one level, there are 2 sharps (C# D#) and 4 naturals (F G A B) while on the next level there are 3 naturals (C D E) and 3 sharps (F# G# A#)…
By repeating these patterns in 3 layers, Janko’s intention was to provide many alternative positions for playing scales or groups of notes.
This might make it physically easier to play,
if only you can get past the mind-blowing layout!
.
KEY COVERINGS
The coverings on the tops of pianoforte keys are there to protect the wood from wear, and early pianos didn’t always have any coverings at all on the fronts of the keys, because they are not functional, but purely decorative. If they did, it would often be fancy wooden mouldings, or some artificial material, rather than ivory. In 1865, Henry Tolkien was advertising ivory key-fronts as an unusual feature.
KEY-FRONTS
Many square pianos had fancy wooden mouldings as key-fronts, at least until the 1840s, and Lucy Coad tells me that fronts like these were already being used by Broadwood as early as 1783.
Here is the unusual profile of the keys on a piano known only as “Alexandra” from around 1880.
Nobody can tell you whether your piano’s keys have ivory coverings unless you inspect them, or send photos. Genuine ivory key coverings usually have joins in them, level with the fronts of the sharps (black notes). Ivory can distort with age, and also has a visible grain, but this can be imitated, so it is the joins that give away ivory.
If you want to export an old pianoforte with ivory keys, you may need a license, and if it involves America and Canada, you may even be asked to prove whether the elephant came from Africa, this is impossible. I heard from a client who was shocked to have her antique piano seized temporarily by Customs because she did not have a license for importing the ivory. Any “worked specimens” (such as ivory cut into piano key coverings) are covered by antiques derogation and probably may be traded within the European Union commercially without a certificate, provided they were worked before 1947. New Zealand has stricter laws, and recently ripped the ivory coverings off a piano that was imported. The ivory was then scrapped. The law is complex, but a lot of the restrictions do not apply to antique piano keys that stay within Europe. Who knows what will happen after Brexit!
This 1903 hunter said he had “a lucky escape from an elephant” but it wasn’t
lucky for the elephant when this man invaded his home with a gun.
All the elephants whose ivory was used would have died eventually, it is so sad that people couldn’t just wait for them to die naturally to steal those overgrown incisors. How wonderful that a rhino killer has just been jailed for 77 years, 3 rhinos are killed every day. Meanwhile, POACHERS ARE KILLING 55 ELEPHANTS A DAY, more than are being born to replace them, and soon they will only exist in zoos. You can help…
I googled “rhino poachers” and Amazon said they sell them!
Although plastics came to fruition in the homes of the 1950s, they are a lot older than many people imagine, and by the 1860s, there was not enough ivory in the world to cope with demand for piano keys, billiard balls, etc. The hunt was on for artificial alternatives, but don’t imagine this was intended to save elephants, it was just because there weren’t enough dead elephants to supply demand. In 1862, Cellulose was first made artificially from gun-cotton by A. Parkes, of Birmingham. Called "Parkesine", it could simulate ivory, tortoiseshell, wood or India-rubber, and was shown at the 1862 London Exhibition. In 1868, John & Isaiah Hyatt, of New York, produced something similar which they called “Celluloid” from camphor and pyroxlin (cellulose nitrate). Celluloid is sometimes said to be "the American name for an English invention". It is still used, often with a fake grain, as an alternative to ivory.
Over the years, there has been an amusing array of names for ivory imitations, including Eburnea, Elephite, Elfenit, Ivoette, Ivoren, Ivorine, Ivorite, Ivothene, Tuskite, etc., but we have no way of knowing which of these materials was used on your piano, unless there is a label somewhere. The real challenge is to produce an artificial covering which does not stick to sweaty fingers, and has the smooth, dry feel of ivory. Yamaha seem to do this better than most.
Undoubtedly the worst synthetic key covering ever made was Galalith (Milkstone) – made from the casein of milk, and not to be confused with the naturally-occurring soft galalith found in underground caves. An ad in our 1914 Music Trades Directory says Galalith "wears better than ivory, far superior to celluloid". In reality, it marks and scratches very easily, being much softer than ivory or celluloid, and by now is a characteristic dirty grey colour.
I created something very similar one morning when, in a half-asleep state,
I microwaved the porridge for 20 minutes instead of 2.
This 1842 picture shows a Broadwood key-maker cutting keys from a single board, hence the term “keyboard”, but elephants have traditionally been unwilling to co-operate in producing large sheets of flat ivory, and one of the advantages of these artificial coverings was that they could be made in keyboard-sized sheets, glued to the board before it was cut into individual keys, or produced in ready-made key shapes, with no joins. At a time when pianoforte keys were cut by hand, it was easier if the outer ends of the sharps were rounded, as shown in the middle picture.
By 1856, Collard & Collard advertised this as their “Registered Key Board”, saying that their pianos were not genuine without it. Witton & Witton took it a stage further, and fitted thick, rounded fronts to the naturals as well, as shown above. Caperoe and Harling did the same.
Cocks & Co. also referred to “Registered Keys”, and around 1889, J.& J.Tomkinson acknowledged the use of “Collard’s Registered Keys”. Some other makers used the rounded sharps from the 1860s to the 1880s, including examples bearing the name of the London key-maker William Dewar. In 1865, Tolkien advertised “rounded keys with ivory fronts”. It is fair to say that if you have a Collard piano thought to have been made around the mid-1800s, and it does not have rounded sharps, it would be pre-1856, and a rough date would be “circa 1844”.
This piano was previously at one of the Great Yarmouth museums – the David Howkins “Museum of Memories”: When our dear friend Val Howkins died, the piano was passed on to us. It was made by Collard & Collard in 1883, and has the rounded sharps. Internally, it is a fairly standard cottage piano, but externally it was part of the experimental period in the 1880s, and the top door has 9 beautiful hand-painted floral panels, and pierced fretwork on the centre panel. (Val Howkins’ grandfather was the manager of the “Elephant Man” Joseph Merrick around that time.) Collards were phasing out the rounded sharps in the 1880s, and the latest examples we know of are dated 1892.
#TWEET
One of the common and characteristic forms of damage to key coverings is perhaps from a surprising source. If you let a budgie loose around a piano, it will soon work out that if it sits on the keys, it can peck at the edges of them, to help keep its beak sharp. Needless to say, parrots do even more damage!
The TOP DOOR (top front panel) of an upright piano is usually held in place by two simple clips at the top corners, accessed by simply lifting the top. Then, the top door can be tilted forward and lifted out. The FALL (keyboard lid) is hinged to the HOLLOW, and this is usually just slotted in, so in theory it can be lifted out vertically with one hand on the fall. In practise, old pianos often warp, and if the hollow hasn’t been removed for years, it might be so tight that you need a carpenter’s help to get it back. Some hollows are much simpler, and held in place by a screw each end.
There may also be a strip of wood called a NAME-BOARD holding the keys in place, this may be screwed or clipped in at the ends. (Name-boards don’t usually have makers’ names on them, although retailers often mark them with a transfer or label.) Now, you should be able to see the whole length of each key, and it is usually possible to carefully lift out individual keys to examine all their surfaces for interesting marks. However, before you do this, have a good look at the dust. If only the middle of the keyboard has been used, the dust there will have fallen off the edges of the keys, leaving ridges along the middle of each key, and you may be able to see what area of the keyboard has been used regularly, or whether there have been favourite notes. Is it ordinary grey dust, or does it have leather and felt colours? These would suggest heavy use and wear, which may lead to repair work being required, to fix unevenness in the performance of the notes.
Before you start removing keys, have a look at the TOUCH DEPTH – the distance that the keys go down before they stop. As the felts and baizes under the keys wear and compress, they become thinner, and unless the keys are moving the correct distance, the action cannot perform efficiently, so the notes will not play correctly. Instead of measuring, press a black note all the way down until it stops, and check that the nearest end is still a couple of millimetres above the surrounding white keys, and doesn’t disappear down a hole. Then press the white keys either side of it down as well, they should now be in the same relationship that they have when at rest. If this is not right, there is probably wear and/or deterioration in the felts and baizes under the keys, so they need to be replaced. Repeat the test in different parts of the keyboard.
The keys are usually numbered left to right, other numbers marked on keys would obviously have meant something to the makers originally, but generally speaking, no information has survived to help us interpret them, and they rarely relate to the piano’s serial number, although this unusual example from around the 1914 war has Collard’s serial number rubber-stamped on two keys and on the key-frame. (They were making their own actions and keys then.) I suggest laying out the keys in order on top of the piano. Before you start doing this, it is vital to remember that every key is slightly different, and if they are not clearly numbered left to right, you must mark them in some way, so that they do not get mixed up. You can number them individually in pencil, but a simpler idea is to use some kind of straight edge to draw a sloping pencil line across the wooden tops of the keys. While you are removing them, you have a rare opportunity to examine every surface for interesting marks, and remove loose dirt, and wet wipes are quite good for this job. Taking every wooden part back to clean wood is risky, and may cause damage, so leave that to an expert.
In this picture, some of the keys have been removed, to show the normal layout more clearly. In a Victorian piano like this one, each key may have a STICKER on the far end, and it is important to realise that these are hinged on vellum. You can break one in a second, but it can take an hour to mend it properly. The front-rail pins (nearest the pianist) are known as BAT-PINS because they are usually shaped like upside-down cricket bats, so that twisting them will tighten the key. Gently brush away loose dust with a dry paintbrush, and take the opportunity to clean the metal pins that the keys stand on, with 3-in-1 oil, WD40 or a little Vaseline. Some old tuners use ear wax for individual pins! Do not attempt to enlarge the holes in the keys with anything tapered, it will make them jam permanently.
ENHARMONIC KEYBOARD
Between the naturals (white notes) C and D there is normally a black note which could equally be called C# (C sharp) or Db (D flat). All the black notes have two names, and C# and Db are said to be ENHARMONIC - two note-names sharing the same pitch. In addition to the notes A, B, C, D, E, F and G, normal keyboards have 5 black notes within each octave, and these are usually tuned to what is known as Equal Temperament, mathematically calculated to make every semitone interval the same. An Enharmonic keyboard is one which has more than the usual 13 notes to the octave, and may, for example, have separate keys for C# and Db: Intervals smaller than a semitone are known as Microtones. Some enharmonic keyboards have twice the usual number of notes, and are tuned in quarter-tones instead of semitones.
In the 1760s, J.C.Zumpe made a piano with twice the usual number of black notes, it has double black keys, one on top of the other, so the keyboard includes C#, Db, D#, Eb, F#, Gb, G#, Ab, A# and Bb. Fabbri (or Favvri) had made a harpsichord with a similar enharmonic keyboard as early as 1631.
The technical matter of how many notes there could or should be in an octave is a rather difficult one to explain, because the octave is a natural interval that even some animals can recognise, whereas semitones and whole-tones are man-made. The mathematics is straightforward, if boring! Why then, does no-one seem to quote the answer? Most sources say "quite a few" or "an awful lot". I wrote a program for my computer to find out how many notes per octave it would take to provide pure fourths and fifths from any note, within the limits of human error. If we limit the accuracy of tuning to the nearest whole-number frequency, there could be 54 notes in an octave… instead of 13! For many years, I wished I had a keyboard that would allow me to experiment with different temperaments and enharmonics, but when I wrote a computer program to do this, I soon found out that as a musician and a tuner, I really hate anything that is not Equal-Tempered, and I feel a terrible feeling of inner disturbance when I hear anything that departs too far from it. Some authors try to suggest that there is something natural and correct about other temperaments, but there is nothing natural in them, they are ALL man-made, as is the concept of 12 semitones in an octave. To suggest that equal temperament takes something away, makes music less interesting, or compromises it, is to misunderstand it completely, it solves problems, so that we can play anything in any key. It is not about the ratio of the semitone, so much as the need to remove the "WOLF" intervals that howl in every other temperament. One Norfolk tuner, for example, always tunes the F# notes wrongly, so when I played a restaurant piano that he had just tuned, I spent the evening trying to avoid anything with an F# in it - impossible!
SCALE OR SCALING
In the piano trade, the word SCALE does not usually refer to a music scale, it more often indicates the SCALING or measurement of various design aspects, such as stringing. Sideways measurement of the piano keyboard varies somewhat from make to make, and there are certain scales which have recognised names, while many do not. For the purpose of comparison, it is convenient to measure the width of six octaves F-F in centimetres, because this is somewhere around one metre, or one hundred centimetres. A scale of exactly one metre for six octaves is known as “The Continental Scale". The version of the Continental Scale used in Collard pianos of the 1840s included unusually wide tails on the D keys.
Circa 1913 Sewell catalogue includes their Class 6 upright, with Continental Scaling.
Circa 1925 The Miller Scale - 116.8 cm was used by Bansall.
1930 Bluthners’ scale was 101.2 cm.
TRANSPOSING KEYBOARDS
As early as 1780, Bauer made pianofortes with Transposing Keyboards, so that a piece of music could be played in a selection of different keys, without the need to change fingering. Erard was making them in 1812, and Montal presented a transposing upright at the Great Exhibition, 1851, (above) with markings on the keys to show that they could be moved up or down a maximum of 3 semitones. He still made them in the 1870s. Transposition is usually achieved by a lever under the keyboard which slides the keys so that they operate different notes of the action, and Irving Berlin famously used this repeatedly in mid-performance because he could only play on the black notes! Normally, this arrangement means that all the keys, strings and all the notes of the action have to be equally spaced, but Feurich made a transposing upright piano in 1894 which had strangely-angled levers to overcome this problem, so the action was normal, and did not need to be equally spaced. This also meant that overstringing could be used. Heintzmann had a transposing patent in 1887, and around 1894, Lister was advertising 8-octave transposing pianos.
This label is from Blankenstein, another maker, but perhaps the most common transposers to survive are the uprights made by George Russell, London, around the late 1800s and early 1900s.
DOUBLE PIANOS & REVERSED KEYBOARDS.
There have been a number of different types of "double piano". Some were upright pianos with a keyboard each side, like Muller's 1800 Ditanaklasis, or Jones' 1851 Family Piano. Some double pianos are grands with one keyboard above the other, and usually some difference between them, but they could be the same pitch, and around the 1920s, Rogers made a double-keyboard for organists to practise on, with a bass pedalboard as well. The keyboards are more likely to be an octave apart, or a quartertone apart, an idea which has limited use. The only suitable music that comes to mind is Henry Mancini's theme for the Audrey Hepburn film "Wait until dark", in which a simple minor chord goes down and up in quartertones, creating a very tense effect, because it is uncomfortable to our ears. Then there are the double grands which are like 2 grands merged into one oblong shape, with the keyboards at opposite ends, like Pirrson's 1851 one, or the later and more familiar Pleyel. Bluthner's Duo-Flugel may seem similar, but it is 2 separate grands which are designed and shaped so that they can be fitted together for performance. In modern times, Baldwin created a double grand for Elton John and Lady Gaga by joining an electronic piano onto the back of a normal grand.
PIANO RENVERSÉ
Mangeot made double-decker grands in which the top one is reversed left-to-right, so the low notes are at the right-hand end. These require a particular kind of brain to play them! The top grand also has its bentside on the opposite side, so it curves on the lefthand side, a sort of “mirror grand” making the whole shape somewhat incongruous. I have never come across a reversed keyboard that does not have a normal one with it.
Then again, some makers produced grands which were perfectly normal inside, but the case was made with the bentside on the left. Just art? Pleyel made them around 1899, and although really there is a modern Bluther "left-handed" grand, some of the pictures shown online are fake. Most other examples on the internet are simply photos that have been accidentally flipped by couldn’t-care-less websites.
LOCKS & LOCK-KEYS
Pianos have many keys, one for each note, and the same word is used in various languages whether one is talking about a key that “unlocks” the sound of a note, or a key for the lock. In the piano trade, we talk about LOCK-KEYS. Scans or photos of locks and lock-keys are often interesting to us, although rarely useful in dating pianos. If the lock-key is missing, a locksmith should be able to provide a key if you unscrew the lock and take it to him, or keys may be available from trade suppliers.
Square or Triangular Solid Shaft Barrel Shaft
Piano locks are obtainable through trade suppliers, but they are not really specialised units, or substantially different to small cupboard / wardrobe locks, and they aren't vandal-proof, they can be picked with a bent wire, or sometimes even a screwdriver. If the keyhole escutcheon is circular, this indicates the simplest and least-secure types of piano lock-key, which usually have a triangular shaft, but occasionally a square one. Either way, they can be opened with a small screwdriver. A more conventional keyhole shape on an upright piano suggests a lock-key of one of two types…
A "solid" key has a solid shaft which fits into a hole in the back plate of the lock. These are the most common type of piano lock, mass-produced, and almost universal in shape, so they are easy to replace. A "barrel" type is not a barrel lock, but a hollow key shaped like a gun barrel, which fits over a pin in the back plate of the lock. These are the best, most secure piano locks, not that any of them are burglar-proof.
If you want to fit some kind of lock to a pianoforte, I suppose you need to decide whether this is to be just a lightweight discouragement for people who would like to tinkle the keys, or a major security effort against vandals. In the former case, a strong cloth cover may be sufficient. In the latter case, you need to lock the top, keyboard and bottom door of an upright piano. Grands are a security nightmare, and it is frightening the tricks that sweet, little convent girls will pull on a grand, like pouring sand and paraffin into it, and adding a lighted match. If you have a grand standing in front of a stage, it is worth investigating the possibility of hiding it away under the stage, but moving pianos regularly can cause tuning problems, and risks of injury to the people involved. Some churches build a large lockable box fixed to the wall, to enclose an upright piano, but the more usual method is a hasp and staple, with a padlock. One of the problems in trying to make the piano itself secure is that many hasps tend to vibrate when the piano is played. You may be able to solve this by fitting two staples and a long padlock. If a piano lock buzzes when you play certain notes, try oiling it. Locks are only as secure as the material into which they are fixed, and if it's a modern chipboard piano, screws don't hold well, security is virtually impossible, so a box is your best approach.
WOODWORM IN PIANOS
When the timber beetle Anobius Punctatum flies or crawls into your piano to lay her eggs, she will probably take a right turn, and start looking for some soft, tasty wood to feed her grubs when they hatch. Why she takes a right turn is a complete mystery, but she'll probably end up in the soft wood of the keys at the treble end rather than anywhere else. Once hatched, the grubs tunnel and munch their way through yards of wood for 3 to 5 years, sometimes leaving as little as 30% remaining to just wait until a pianist comes along, presses the key, and wonders why it doesn't come back up!
The important thing to remember is that the holes are exit holes, so there is probably nobody home when you find them. On the other hand, there may still be years of damage to come. Fresh dust indicates activity, so brush it away and watch for more. Mark every hole, and check for the appearance of new holes.
Treatment with an injecting aerosol is the best way to force liquid in, and soak the wood from the inside, but there are no guarantees. Kiln treatment will kill the woodworm, but may destroy the piano, so don't even think about it! Fumigation inside the piano may be an answer, especially in upright pianos. An undated catalogue from Baker & Co., piano supplies, includes the following information, which is interesting in spite of some inaccuracies.
There is no doubt that "woodworm" has very greatly increased in recent years and what, in our grandmother's day, was spoken of as "proof of a genuine antique " has now become a definite menace to every type of furniture, and particularly to pianos. Most people seem to think that woodworm is only a summer pest and it is true that every year during the warmer months of spring and summer, the seasonal emergence period brings more and more tiny flight holes on the surface of cherished furniture and pianos. These flight holes can be so numerous sometimes as to occasion the gravest concern in many homes. Everyone becomes very woodworm conscious, and treatments of many kinds are tried out. When the end of summer comes, the attack appears to die out, alarm fades and interest flags. Not so the woodworm. This tiny grub, the larval stage of a wood-boring beetle tunnels within the wood for anything up to 33 months and there is no period of hibernation. Also, a fact that few people realise, is that, having emerged, as an adult beetle it can fly quite freely.
The female will lay anything up to 50 eggs on suitable wood surfaces over a wide area and the attack can spread throughout the house. Briefly, the life cycle of the pest is this; the eggs are laid in cracks and crevices on the surface of the wood and are so tiny as to be hardly visible to the naked eye. These eggs hatch out in 4 to 5 weeks into tiny hook-shaped grubs (this is the woodworm) which immediately start eating their way into the wood. The grub stage lasts about 33 months and during that time its tunnelling operation can do a great deal of damage. The grub ends its boring just under the surface of the wood, spends a few weeks as a pupa and then, having become a tiny beetle, it bites its way out, making the little round hole we all recognise. The beetle itself is dark brown in colour and is about an eighth of an inch long. What is obvious from these facts is that treatment for extermination can be carried out just as effectively in winter as in summer. Moreover, it can be done without the feeling of panic hurry that comes from seeing daily evidence of fresh emergence holes. Pianos, being valuable instruments, should be regularly inspected for signs of woodworm holes. Not a casual glance over the case, but a really careful check, inside and out, should be made and attention should be focused on, and under, the bottom pedal board, which is only too often found to be infected.
If the tell-tale flight holes are seen, treatment should be given immediately. One of the most highly recommended insecticides for such treatment is Rentokil Timber Fluid "A". This is a deeply penetrating liquid which will not harm the finest polished surfaces. The method is simple, but must be thoroughly carried out. All surfaces both inside and out must be given two really wetting brush coats of Rentokil Timber Fluid "A", using an ordinary clean paint brush, and allowing four days between the applications. In addition to brush coating it is advisable to inject into the flight holes using the plastic injector (supplied in the outfit). This injection forces the Fluid deeply into the galleries made by the tunnelling grub and gives extra penetration from inside the wood. The Rentokil Timber Fluid "A" will not harm strings or felts should it accidentally come into contact with them. Once the full treatment for woodworm has been given there will be no further trouble. Rentokil Timber Fluids remain effective for many years.
RENOVATION, CONVERSION & MUTILATION
There is no standard definition of terms like renovation, restoration, refurbishment, or reconditioning, so although we can say that “restoration” or “renovation” should mean restoring it to its original condition, “as new”, it often means nothing of the kind, and sometimes it is more like mutilation. Antique dealers often moan about “over-cleaning” but when it comes to some pianos, appearances may be purposely altered by reputable museums, even when pictures are easily available to show what the piano should look like. Old authentic parts are sometimes ripped out and replaced with modern ones, wood finishes are completely altered, and this obsession with making the interior of an old piano shine like a new pin can lead to the destruction of its original character. We go to museums in the hoping of seeing what things looked like originally, but what we see is often quite wrong.
SOUNDPROOFING & SOUND TREATMENT
When we lived in a small mid-terrace cottage, it was difficult rehearsing and recording music. Firstly, there was the unpredictable noise coming in from the neighbours, especially when Melissa was having one of her 6-hour screaming fits! Secondly, it is difficult to let yourself go, and sing or play confidently, when you know the neighbours can hear you. After all, rehearsing is about going over and over the WORST bits! The French call it “le repetition”.
Another aspect is that a normal room does not produce good microphone recordings, because there is usually a lot of resonance from hard surfaces. The process of improving the acoustics of a room is called “Sound Treatment”, but it can be combined with soundproofing. With modern recording equipment, it is easy to add controlled amounts of reverberation electronically, so the ideal is a completely “dead” room, to get that warm, intimate sound.
I set about seeking advice from professional people who should know the best way to soundproof, but even ignoring those who had no idea, the advice from others was often conflicting and confused, so I developed an experimental formula, based on combining ideas from various sources with ideas of my own, and I set about testing it.
The results were amazing! Having put panels around the walls of a room, I set some music playing very loudly, then I went next door and asked if the music was loud enough to bother them. They said “what music?” and nothing at all could be heard inside their house, in spite of the fact that I had done nothing to the floor or ceiling. Here is a description of the simple construction of these panels, which also have the effect of levelling out the temperature in the room.
One of the requirements for keeping sound out is to have a hard surface with plenty of mass, so that it can reflect sound back out, but also dissipate any that it absorbs. The simplest idea is ¾” chipboard, and this usually comes in 8’x4’ panels. Lay one on the floor, and fix 4” sides on top of it, to form a tray. Apply a 2” layer of rockwool, then a 2” sheet of polystyrene foam, which will have to be trimmed slightly to fit inside the edges. Top it with softboard, which absorbs and insulates. This is the surface that should face into the room, although it is the least attractive, and a bit of a dust-trap, so you may want to dress it up with curtains.
In spite of references online to the heat-insulating and sound-insulating properties of softboard, the actual stuff seems to have disappeared from the face of Eastern England!
The chipboard will go against the wall, but must not conduct vibrations from the wall, so stick a layer of bubble wrap onto it. In the same way, it needs some rubber to stop vibrations from the floor. I used strips cut from kneeling pads. At the time, the total cost was about £30 for an 8’x4’ panel, about 5” thick, but prices of some boards have gone up to 4 times the price in the last few years. These well-worn panels are still giving good service after two changes of address, not pretty but effective. Without donations, I will be fine, but the Piano History Museum may not survive. If every visitor to this site made a donation, we would be able to improve museum displays in our building, and have much-improved facilities for research within our own archives.
Pianogen.org panio paino pisno pinao piano history museum
