To all DIYers,

Spending a little extra money to have your grand piano moved professionally is a small investment.



Especially compared to the possible heartache from the result.

My thought for the day,

What? It obviously propagates the tone differently, in order to eliminate standing waves in difficult acoustic environments. Duh!

I think this is the new Bosite prototype.

TD:

Regarding the standing waves, wouldn't work without the flux capacitors being wired in series.

Kurt

Kurt,

Dang! How could have I possibly forgotten something so obvious? Now I feel confused and stupid.

Be sure the parallel-wired capacitors aren't tipped on their sides during moving, as it weakens their aura with negative ions. At least, that's what I've read on the internet.

Probably just trying to drain the water after a leak in the roof filled the piano.

Ugh, this belongs on the StileProject of pianos.

French singer Gilbert Becaud had the rear leg of his piano shortened so that he could better see over it.

Oh my...

It seems to be a semi-concert grand, around 7 feet in length. Just out of curiosity, what brand was the piano?

The purchasing committee was unable to come to an agreement on whether to get a grand or a vertical, so after much deliberation, they arrived at a compromise.

It's amazing what some players will do to keep people from putting drinks on the piano.

Larry.

Did someone try to roll it up the ramp and snap the leg off?

I saw this happen last year at a student recital I was playing in. The first half of the recital was strings, so they had moved the piano, an old Steinway, off to the side to make room for all the string players in a big ensemble (this was in a church).

At the intermission they tried to push the piano back, the rear leg caught on the edge of the carpet, and it collapsed and the piano went down. It doesn't take much. Those little wheels will catch on the smallest obstacle. One of those concert dollies is a good idea if the piano has to be moved around.

So we had to move the recital into the basement of the church and play on an old piano that was in pretty bad shape.

I was not there but that is what appears to have happened.

Full disclosure - this is not my piano. This picture was emailed to me by a colleague.

Rich, we know that you and your associates would never do something like that!

I'm trying to understand how this happened. I mean, would it have killed them to hoist the caster up just an inch or two??

It can happen to anyone
http://www.company7.com/bosendorfer/april2007_275drop.html

yes I remember that day without even clicking on the link. That was a hot topic here for a while, of course.

As I recall, Bosendorfer provided a replacement piano to the festival.

What happened is a rare thing, but mistakes happen. That is why there is insurance... hopefully.

+1

In a private home, you can do without a dolly. Anywhere else, it makes sense to use them.

I always wondered what the story was about the Bosie. Now I know. I think several of us have stories of clients trying to move a grand and unaware of the risks if done improperly.

Wow! I didn't know about the Bosie story!

I've seen some of those pictures before--probably here. But I've never read the story.

It's clear from the first picture that the tail is still inside the van, and from this picture it's clear that they are in trouble.

I don't know about the Two Moors Festival, but most concert venues have a loading dock, and that's definitely how this piano should have been unloaded (imo). Even rotating it on the truck's platform would have been difficult given its size.

Hindsight is 20/20, but in the future, perhaps the tail should be to the rear--if it had been, it could have overhung the lift by a lot more than the keyboard end, and perhaps cleared the van walls for pivoting (but could still be pretty squirrelly...). But then if it rocks, there'd be no platform under it to stop it from flipping off. I think the piano is simply too large for the platform lift.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt! The guys in this photo are right in the direction the piano fell!

Just goes to show you that moving a piano can be complex and dangerous, even for the people who do it every day.

The fact that this same Bosendorfer fail photoset keeps making the rounds is heartening in that it would seem to imply these kinds of calamities are indeed rare.

Actually they are just using the liftgate to manipulate the piano so they do not have to lift it to set the folly underneath it. This is a technique used with larger pianos.



It is definitely larger than the liftgate, but that is also normal because nobody makes a 9'6" liftgate.

The keyboard side is also snug up against a lip on the board supporting the piano, which is designed for these moves. There is definitely danger in moving a large piano with a liftgate, but when done carefully, it can be done safely as well.

I can't tell exactly what went wrong with this particular move from the pictures, but IMHO most problems in piano moving come from a lack of communication. If someone makes a move that others do not expect - that is when problems happen.

The folly -- a Freudian slip?

Not a big deal, I think it's still playable, just lean on your knees.

Maybe pianos should come with a warning label, like cigarettes:

WARNING:
We're just kidding about the wheels on this thing.
It's much too heavy to roll on these silly tiny casters.

Interesting. I assumed that it was on the dolly and that they had rolled it onto the lift, lowered it and caught the tail. What you described sounds like a clever trick to get the dolly under it.

I think the story said that these were essentially before and after photos, and that they'd missed the actual fall. We'll probably never know what happened.

Anyway, glad no one was injured!

Reminds me of this train/plane accident

OMG!!! Those look like airplanes - or at least part of airplanes. Tell us that story phantomFive.