Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Dark/mellow vs. bright/strident

Yes, the samples seem to vary, which is why I posted the two Bechstein Academy clips. This Steingraeber 138 sample seems to have more edge to its attack.

The Steingraeber has an immediate appeal to me, perhaps its tone reminds me of my old Schiedmayer. Mine is mellower on the attack and I feel no urge to replace it with any of the Steingraebers I played the other day.

No, I wondered that. Please see my post about Paul McNulty's fortepianos on the Chopin thread Ed Foote has just started.

I'd guess faithful reproductions are as close as we are likely to get to the original sound. As Lluis says there has been a lot of research into materials and methods.

Coming back to the OP, you might like to decide whether you'd add mellowness or brightness to this MIDI version of Earl Hines playing "The One I Love Belongs To Somebody Else".

Stanley Dance wrote, on 22 September 1977, "Hines, Iike Art Tatum, has an astonishing ability to make a poor piano sound good, but he is naturally happier on a good piano, and on a superb piano Ilke the Schiedmeyer he radiates euphoria of a most infectious kind. Since he was in the middie of a six-week engagement at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, it was a fairly logical idea for me to walk him a few blocks and confront him with the glittering instrument. He sat down and ran his fingers up and down the keyboard Then he grinned widely, lit his pipe, and asked for some coffee. Three hours later, an album-and-a-half had been completed. The six selections here are all standards that evoked memories for him of other days and other artists in Chicago. The One l Love Belongs to Somebody EIse, for example, was the first number he ever played with Louis Armstrong." [http://herve.delboy.perso.sfr.fr/earl_hines_2.html]

I think that the qualities necessary for a piano to be good for classical music of the Romantic era(and probably the classical and post Romantic eras also) are different from the qualities that might be best for a pianist who plays stride or who plays in the style of Gershwin. For example, a singing tone doe not seem crucial for music played n those styles.

I don't know how representative that sample is. There are so many variables. Other than the usual ones found in recording pianos in general, there's the problem of recording ambient sound coming from a tall box Then you have to consider the skill level of the player, his heavy right foot, and whether the material is good enough to provide any kind of meaningful basis of evaluation. Personally, I think that sample sells Steinbraeber short and would be dismissed by most listeners as ho-hum stuff if the brand of the piano were not known to them.

The most intriguing sample I've listened to on a contemporary Steingraeber comes from Shaun Tirrell of Pianocraft.

https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb...un%20Tirrell%20Chopin%20Mazurkas%20.html

Keith Kerman, Shaun's business partner ( who posts here occasionally), put this one up for consideration here a while back. I think it's a perfect example of how taking off a bit of the percussive edge doesn't necessarily obscure what a piano is or is not. Neither does minimal pedaling if the player's skill level is up to ti.

The Steinbraeber qualities are most apparent to my ears in the second Mazurka played.

Do pianos for stride have to be strident?

That Earl Hines link is to a MIDI file, I believe. The sound you get from it is the piano sound of whatever your MIDI interpreter uses.

I tuned for him not long before he died. I did not talk to him much, but he liked the piano, a Steinway which I just tuned the other day. I think it is different from when he played it, though.

Oh well, that explains a lot! Still, it's a good story. The website goes into converting vinyl to MIDI at length.

Will have to seek out the record: Earl 'Fatha' Hines: The Father of Modern Jazz Piano (five LPs boxed): three LPs solo (on Schiedmeyer grand) and two LPs with Budd Johnson, Bill Pemberton, Oliver Jackson: MF Productions 1977

Thanks for posting these comparisons. Really interesting to hear the differences - even within a brand.

Based on these videos, I liked best the sound of the Steingraeber and Bosendorfer. They really stood out for the quality of the tone that I would describe as more rounded, which means they had what I heard as more balance across the spectrum. The Steingraeber stood out for me as particularly beautiful. I haven't fully formed a language to describe what I'm hearing yet, which is, I think, a common issue in describing the tone of a piano.

Dark/Mellow vs. Bright/Strident. To which I answer, Yes! I want it all at my fingertips.

I think I am not mistaken when I say it is impossible that Chopin's hammers sounded like the 1842 Pleyel above, and I can back that up with information.

I have posted an article relative to this discussion, including photos of original hammers, period articles etc. on Ed Foote's thread ' What would Chopin play? (was bright vs dark)'


regarding the 'recording' of the 1839 Pleyel it was my iphone 4 with it's built-in mic..

Yes, I've seen your post and it's most interesting.

I came across this old thread and found this particular post comparing tones very interesting, so I cared to share my opinion of the tones of the pianos discussed.

To me, all these fine European pianos have tones that are on the bright side and I hear a higher level of transparency in their tones, with Bosendorfer and Steingraeber having the clearest tones. But that is just my opinion. To me, these pianos have intrinsically different tones than both New York Steinway and Shigeru Kawai, the latter, in my opinion, having the softest and mellowest tone of all top tier instruments I have tried.

Fazioli is another European piano that has the highest level of tone clarity in my opinion. The only European pianos that I have played on and found their tone to be on the mellow/softer side must be Petrof. At least, this is how my ears hear the sound. Somebody else's perception of tone could be different from mine.

Of the European pianos I have experienced, I find Bluthner, Sauter, and Estonia to have the warmest tones in general among their pianos. Petrof is brighter in my experience. Smaller Bosendorfers can also be warmer toned
than their bigger siblings.

Hi there,

Are there any nice recording like this one
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=B8OXF9VvJIc
were the sound of a piano can really be revealed ?

What do you think about the sound of the Essex upright in the video ?

Note: in order to really hear the differences from each recoding method you need to use headphones.

Without trying to characterize them, I'll just say it's interesting how different pianos can sound from one another when you listen to them as presented in the links above, especially the two from the same maker!

Interesting! Someone else posted words to that effect here recently.

Nice to encounter a Marty post!

RIP



Karl Watson

I bet his harp is a Steinway.

Still miss you Marty.

Probably giving harp lessons!


And harp acquisition tips!