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Got an old piano - for free! Must now learn to play it.


Skol303
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[size=4]I’ve just finished restoring an old piano that was donated for gratis by a friend of the family. Well, I say I’ve been [/size][i]restoring[/i][size=4] it… really I’ve been cleaning it; the restoration work was done at a very good rate by the chaps at [/size][url="http://cheshirepianos.com"]Cheshire Pianos[/url][size=4].[/size][/size][/font]
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[size=4]It’s a mid-1930s Steinbach. Arrived chock-full of dust and grime (I honestly don’t think it had ever been cleaned!), completely out of tune - as you’d expect - and needing some tender loving care applied to its workings; specifically the action, which needed new springs and other replacement parts. But heh, it’s like 80 years old, so I have to cut it some slack ;)[/size][/size][/font]
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[size=4]The Cheshire Piano guys say that it’s in good shape for its age. A touch dry and ‘brittle’; most of the keys are chipped at the edge; the exterior is a little beat up; it smells like an old church… but it's all good.[/size][/size][/font]
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[size=4]Just had it tuned today, so I now need to learn how to play it :blink: Concert pitch was out of the question - it’s just too old and frail for that - so I asked for it to be tuned a semitone down, so I can at least tune my bass to it with relative ease for recording purposes. It’s going to need another tune-up in a few months time, but that's to be expected.[/size][/size][/font]
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[size=4]Anyway. I’m very happy! Not so much an instrument as an item of furniture.[/size][/size][/font]
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[size=4]Here are a few pics…[/size][/size][/font]
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[i][size=4]The belly of the beast:[/size][/i][/size][/font][font=Helvetica][size=3]
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[i][size=4]Fully clothed:[/size][/i][/size][/font][font=Helvetica][size=3]
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^ Thanks guys!

Yeah I feel very lucky to have landed this old girl as a freebie. It belonged to a friend of my wife whose own kids grew up learning to play it, so it has plenty of sentiment and mojo attached to it ;)

Regard the tuning... it's very doubtful that it'll ever be able to hold concert pitch. This is apparently typical of old pianos that havent been properly maintained over the years (as this one certainly hasn't!). Pianos of this period weren't built to be kept in modern homes with central heating, so they often become very dry and brittle.

I've been advised to keep a bowl of water in the bottom of it - just to help 'hydrate' the insides - but the piano tuner advised that a semitone down is likely to be the closest it'll get to true pitch.., which is fine by me. It's in tune with itself - or at least until I start playing it :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1433631680' post='2792691']Had one very similar for years but it became a kind of hotel for rodents. Just sayin'... ;)
Nice instrument though, especially for nowt![/quote]

Cheers Mark! Indeed... no complaints here. I wasn't really in the market for a piano but couldn't turn my nose up at a free one. It took two days to clean it - the dust inside was horrific - so rest assured that no damned rodents will be bedding down in it on my watch ;)

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1433631986' post='2792694']That's a thing of beauty![/quote]

Thanks Paul! It's a handsome thing, if still a wee bit fusty.

[quote name='Biglump' timestamp='1433675310' post='2792948']For learning to play the basics these are absolutely brilliant....[/quote]

BRILLIANT! Bought myself a 'chord wand' on your recommendation and it's great. Very useful and wonderfully simple. Love it. Thanks for the tip :)

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You see lots of free or ridiculously cheap pianos on Preloved/Freeloved. Five miutes searching found these:

http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113264386/free-piano.html

http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113257114/untuned-piano.html

http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113241740/bluthhner-upright-piano.html

http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113241553/john-broadwood-and-sons-upright-piano.html

http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113193789/free-to-collector-upright-piano.html

http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113224025/piano.html

I'm surprised that somebody hasn't found a use for the wood - bass bodies?? - if nothing else.

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I've recently had to get rid of my piano, as we had to move at short notice to a smaller flat. I'd spent ages replacing felts, pitch-raising it back to concert pitch and teaching myself to tune it, and had just got it working nicely when we were given our eviction notice! Still, it was an educational experience and I've kept the tuning tools I picked up.

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To be fair, and a s a word of caution, there are pianos and pianos. I spent a fair few years negotiating the export of s/h pianos from Blighty to France, where there is (was..?) a good market for 'em, once restored. A wood frame piano, for instance, is not allowed to be sold here as a musical instrument, but simply as furniture. It's as good as impossible to get one to hold its tune. Then there's over- and straight-strung, and over- or under-damping, plus a whole host of other 'minor' details which can make a 'good deal' quickly turn into a nightmare.
An anecdote..? Yes..? OK, then, sit yourselves down all comfy, like...
I was, at the time, part of the organisation of our local festival (Les 3 Elephants; look it up...), and suggested an idea as an 'aside' from our standard plateaux of rock bands and such. We had street artists and 'off' stages for mini-theatres, and a reasonably large area to play with. With my contacts (in Preston...), I asked for a truck-load of duff pianos (the North is swimming in 'em...) that I could import. My (crazy...) notion was to erect the Largest Piano Pyramid in the World, and ignite it as a 'bouquet finale' to close the festival. My colleagues agreed to the deal, as long as it wasn't to cost much, and I went ahead. I was planning to install various 'treatments' in the pianos before 'lift off', such as ping-pong balls tucked under the strings, string pulling on others, and even a few bangers in there. As the heat took, the idea was to get the pianos to 'play' themselves, and record the lot from both nearby and inside, with a couple of 'sacrificial' mic's.
All went to plan. The pianos cost very, very little, and I had a good deal from a transporter to bring 'em over. That's when it turned sour, though. Once unloaded, just about every member of the festival team 'bagsied' one or other (sometimes more..!) of the poor wrecks, all wanting what they saw as a 'fine ornament in my salon', or 'great for the kids' etc. By the time the gannets had finished swarming, there were only a few left, certainly not enough for the record-breaking pyramid I'd planned. Those remaining were dispersed all around the festival site as 'deco', and all were content. We didn't break the World Record, I'm sad to say. I regret to this day having let 'em strip away my precious resources. Will I be able to do it again, and achieve the goal..? Not likely, I'm afraid. It was fun, though. There was even a (working, but only just...) player piano to be perched at the very top. Oh well...
Just sayin...

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[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1434475405' post='2800002']You see lots of free or ridiculously cheap pianos on Preloved[/quote]

Aye. Trouble is, a lot of them are trash! ;) (ie. can't be tuned).

It costs a minimum of around £80 to move a piano - and that's if you're hiring a couple of burly chaps with a van, rather than more 'delicate' piano movers (we paid £150). Hence people give them away for free to anyone willing to collect.

I ran the details of this piano past the chaps at Cheshire Pianos before we decided to bagsie it, as I didn't want to get lumbered with an unusable hunk of furniture. They estimated its value at around £400 before tuning/repairs (apparently Steinbach are one of the better old German brands); hence we took the plunge :)

I'm no expert in this field (I'm anything but!). But I strongly advise doing some 'homework' if you're considering picking up one of these old pianos - even pay to get it checked out beforehand - as apparently some aren't worth the delivery fee.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1434479067' post='2800039']I've recently had to get rid of my piano, as we had to move at short notice to a smaller flat. I'd spent ages replacing felts, pitch-raising it back to concert pitch and teaching myself to tune it... it was an educational experience and I've kept the tuning tools I picked up.[/quote]

Kudos!! I don't think I have the ear nor the patience and skill needed to tune and maintain a piano, but maybe in time I'll have a go at it. I can just about manage basses, which is a start :)

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1434481135' post='2800068'] An anecdote..? Yes..? OK, then, sit yourselves down all comfy, like... My (crazy...) notion was to erect the Largest Piano Pyramid in the World, and ignite it as a 'bouquet finale' to close the festival... [/quote]

:D Bloody bonkers brilliant! Shame it didn't come off as planned, but the idea was a cracker.

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My long deceased grandmother was a piano teacher and we had a similar piano at home. I had lessons from the age 8 to 12 and got to Grade 6 or 7, can't remember ATM. Anyhoo, the old piano used to be tuned every year by a blind guy. He was crap at hanging curtains. :mellow: It seems that, back in the 60's, maybe before, they were the best tuners around due to their heightened hearing abilities.

When I was about 14 or 15, the piano was beyond tuning due to it's age and it was full of woodworm, so we filled it with petrol and set light to it on Guy Fawkes night. It wrote a Stockhausen piece as it burned.

Enjoy your freebee.

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I restored a piano a few years ago (overstrung and overdamped like your Steinbach - mine was a Bernstein late 1800's ) Great fun doing it & learning to tune it - I still tune our modern one myself - easy but time consuming. Biggest problem I had was the animal glue decaying in the damper rods so they came loose. Sold it for a nice profit too!

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  • 3 weeks later...

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1434475405' post='2800002']
You see lots of free or ridiculously cheap pianos on Preloved/Freeloved. Five miutes searching found these:

[url="http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113264386/free-piano.html"]http://www.preloved....free-piano.html[/url]

[url="http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113257114/untuned-piano.html"]http://www.preloved....uned-piano.html[/url]

[url="http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113241740/bluthhner-upright-piano.html"]http://www.preloved....ight-piano.html[/url]

[url="http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113241553/john-broadwood-and-sons-upright-piano.html"]http://www.preloved....ight-piano.html[/url]

[url="http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113193789/free-to-collector-upright-piano.html"]http://www.preloved....ight-piano.html[/url]

[url="http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/113224025/piano.html"]http://www.preloved....4025/piano.html[/url]

I'm surprised that somebody hasn't found a use for the wood - bass bodies?? - if nothing else.
[/quote]

Hm. Might be possible to build a nice bass rack in the carcass of a dead piano... I think you could probably fit 8 or 10 basses in there.

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