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Title: 88 Keys : The Making of a Steinway Piano by MILES CHAPIN, RODICA PRATO ISBN: 0-517-70356-4 Publisher: Clarkson Potter Pub. Date: 16 September, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Fit For The Coffee Table
Comment: 88 KEYES is written for music lovers. It is not intended as a manual on the construction of a piano. It reminds me of a college course on the history of science for liberal arts majors who are not interested in becoming scientists. The book contains a history of the Steinway piano and the people behind it as well as a description of how the Steinway piano is built. It is written with clarity and lavishly illustrated. The book is definitely fit to grace the coffee table. The author incidentally is an accomplished actor and also a fifth-generation descendant of Steinway's founder.
Rating: 4
Summary: Gorgeous book about building a piano
Comment: This book gives you a blow-by-blow account of how a piano is made at the Steinway factory in New York City. The book is readable and gives you an appreciation of the detail and precision, all of the handiwork that go into a well-crafted piano. It also shows that a piano is not just a standard item -- pianos are crafted for individuals (Horowitz likes a light, responsive touch, Rubenstein wanted a more resistant touch, some performers want different tones depending on what they are playing). The only drawback (unless you're a Steinway groupie) -- it's rather self-promotional, a well-written, well-illustrated 143-page Steinway & Sons advertisement, but fascinating nonetheless.
Rating: 1
Summary: Oversized Pamphlet, inadequate detail and diagrams
Comment: This is fundamentally an oversized pamphlet. It is double-spaced with wide margins and still only has about 130 pages including many illustrations. Steinway has a CD-rom, which one can obtain quite easily, which covers many Steinway construction topics with better illustrations (including video) than this pamphlet. Anyone with any knowledge at all of piano construction (viewers of the Steinway CD- rom video, and a couple of manufacturers' brochures) will be disappointed in this book.
The book contains no photographs. Hard to believe, eh? The illustrations are excellent, but do not seem to be integrated with the text and very few are diagrammatic showing how things work, just show how they are, if you are lucky.
Many topics are described without detailed reference and explanation with an illustration or diagram.
E.g.. Pg. 15 clavichord mechanism is described verbally, without diagrams.
Pg 64: English style ... "the hammer heads are placed at the far end of the mechanisms and move forward when the keys are struck." I am clueless as to what this would look like. " a glimpse at any contemporary grand piano keyboard will..." How about a picture?
Pg 48-49 Re: matched veneers: " a careful look at the case of any natural wood-finished Steinway will show you how good they are." No photographs or illustrations.
Pg 52 re Scales. "these characteristic dimensions differentiate pianos from different makers more than any other technical element." Perhaps I do not understand the statement, but a Steinway salesperson will point out three distinct differentiations between Steinway and its competitors, which are technically related in my mind.
I was abhorred to look down at the page number, 62, half way through the book, and realized I had only learned a few things of interest and had not learned anything of several topics which I had assumed would be covered. While I did not keep track of the time, I felt I had only been reading a short while.
On several occasions the author begins on what appears an interesting topic, but he either aborts early or has no illustrative diagrams and I cannot follow, despite very good grades in science classes from a prestigious private etc.
Pg. 56. He starts talking about harmonics, but has no diagrams, and again, if one does not know harmonics will probably just be confused.
He talks about sound board gluing, but again no illustrative diagrams or dimensions on final cut. How thick is a soundboard?
Bridge: verbally describes making one, but no diagrams or detailed illustrations.
I will stop with the last. One thing I would certainly expect from a book on making a piano is a detailed explanation with diagrams of how the action works. Pg. 71 (this paragraph is unbelievable): "A model of a piano's action is a fascinating thing to behold. I used to play with one for hours on end ..." "The answer is that the pianos action has evolved over years of experimentation." That's it! No explanation of how the mechanism of the action actually works. One very nice still illustration, but no explanation or additional diagrams.
If this book does not sell on Amazon, it will not sell anywhere, because I would never have bought this oversized pamphlet at a bookstore.
Sorry.
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Title: Steinway & Sons by Richard K. Lieberman ISBN: 0300068506 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Steinway by Ronald V. Ratcliffe, Henry Z. Steinway, Stuart Isacoff ISBN: 0811833895 Publisher: Chronicle Books Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
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Title: The Piano: An Inspirational Guide to the Piano and Its Place in History by John-Paul Williams ISBN: 0823081516 Publisher: Watson-Guptill Pubns Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Theory and Practice in Piano Construction by William Braid White ISBN: 0486231399 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: June, 1975 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Piano by David Crombie ISBN: 0879303727 Publisher: Backbeat Books Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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