Live music at RMAF
The had a piano and a pianist playing for several hours late Saturday.
Funny thing. The piano did not sound that great. I do not mean the playing itself, which was quite interesting, I mean the sound. It is a fairly large space, and the piano was not that big, the damping from the carpet and all the people standing around seemed to rob the notes of harmonics and bloom and decay.
I think this is just one example of many many cases [usually though with small time bands who do not think they should shell out for good sound equipment] where a good stereo system can sound better than a live performance.
But it is indeed hard to beat ‘being there’ watching him play – he was quite entertaining and his playing quite bold – I think that is how I would describe it anyway.
Mike,
I’m sorry to say I didn’t get to hear it, but a few things are out of kilter here:
That was a 7 foot Steinway grand. The largest piano you’ll ever find in any concert hall is 9 feet.
Concert halls can seat several thousand people. They’re a good deal larger than the lobby of the Marriott, and they’re full of padded chairs and people sitting on those chairs. Lots of absorption and diffusion.
Pianos, beyond variation in brand and model can be set up to sound any number of different ways to suit the owner/player. There’s no way of knowing how this one was set up.
Harmonics, bloom and decay can vary considerably from piano to piano, but they’re never anything like what recordings with close miking sound like. I suspect what you heard was probably well within limits of normal live piano sound.
Best,
Dave
Hey Dave,
Not sure what your point is.
But whatever, it all pales against the fact that there used to be a very large piano showroom a few blocks up from where I get my car fixed. And during those long, long hours I used to walk over and play each of their several dozen different kinds of pianos [yes, I am SURE it was annoying. I gave them apologetic looks each time I moved to a new piano]. Like many of us I grew us with a piano in the house and my daughter grew up with a piano in the house. Most of us know what pianos are supposed to sound like.
I do not really care WHY the sound of the piano was overdamped. Perhaps the pianist chose it to be like that. Perhaps not. All I am saying is that it is not of interest to me to listen to a tonally and dynamically bereft piano when I can hear much more natural and enjoyable and real sounding piano music on my home system.
Last year they had a quartet. Maybe nearby exhibitor rooms complained that they were too loud. Who knows.
Kick ass show, huh? Shows are so invigorating. It is so much fun to see and get to talk to everyone.
Take care,
-Mike
Dave/Mike I did hear the piano on arrival Friday mid-day. The pianist was playing a Chopin Waltz – the Minute Waltz Number 6 in D flat major to be specific. The piano, a 7′ steinway “B” model in no way sounded as natural, resonante, sonorous as either of the two Mason & Hamlin piano”B” model 7 footers I have but can scarcely play music on though I can make enougth sounds to know that the piano sounded lame to say the least. Flat, no resonance, no tail off, and especially no sweet rich ring. Definitely within the normal range for that calibre of piano. A Yamaha grand on exhibit in Costo… maybe…but a Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, one of the German pianos….no way. Only heard one piece and then the elevator came. It sounded dull like the upright I used to have in an old basement….what you’d hear in a western saloon almost..a combination of flat and a tad bit tiny in the upper keys. Still, the pianist was skilled and interpreted the piece with feeling and emotion, as opposed to hurrying through in accordance with its Minute moniker. Dave: No way was this tuned to the tastes of any performer. The pads did sound thick though and the piano a bit damped and there was clearly a lack of brightness that I associate with some pianists tastes and with compressed felts. And I beg to differ with you on the sound of live concert piano vs recordings. This past Spring I heard, from the virst row of the Balboa Theater in Downtown San Diego John Lill the scottish pianist play Beethoven’s “other” 2 piano concertos, namely the Violin Concerto arreanged for piano by LVB with cadenzas by Beethoven as well(PC No.6 in D, Op 61a)[English CD: Pietro Spada, piano/Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Alexander Gibson Acadedmy Sound and Vision ASVDigital CD DCA 911 the only recording I’ve been able to purchase] a haunting piece. Also on the program was the Choral Fantasy in C for piano, chorus and orchestra, Op. 80. [Rudolph Serkin’s amazing Teldec recording with Tanglewood Chorus and Carl Bernstein together with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto 3, the title piece of the CD] John Lill was playing a Steinway Concert Grand (10′). I sat parallel to the front of his bench; if my arms were 8 feet long I think I could have walked 2 steps to the stage and shaken his hands. He is 6’2 at least…a big man, and he strikes the keys as hard as Richter must have. The sounds were amazingly loud clean and unforgetable. Not a single mistake..no music of course. No mikes on the piano, but rather above the piano, the top having been removed. If I’d heard a recording of this, I’d have sworn the piano was miked closely as it over whelmed the orchestra and chorus from my first row seat and I imagine for at least the first 10-15 rows. I say this having heard the same pianist two years ago, also in the Mainly Mozart Festival there play all 5 Beethoven Piano Concertos in a single night…over 3 hours including intermissions. I started 12 rows to the extreme right side for my $90 ticket but moved over to dead center 12 rows up for the final two concertos and I remember how loud the piano sounded there as well. In addition the richness of the strings and their sonorous detail was the beginning of my dissatisfaction with my solid state driven Wilson X-2’s which led me, eventually, to Audio Federation and this blog. Incidentally, the mike in both instances was well above the piano and was for a digital recording being made of the entire concert, there being no amplificatoin in the theater. I digress.
Re the Marriott piano: Saturday morning around 7:00AM and for a couple hours thereafter a piano tuner was diligently engaged. I suspect the tone and quality of the piano greatly improved. He was just beginning on the lowest octave so and I didn’t hear but a coupe of notes as he was bringing them into tune….slow going to be sure making me think, consistent with what I had heard the day before that the piano was sorely out of tune. I almost asked him if he had been scheduled to tune the piano the day before and missed. I’m going to speculate that the only problem with the piano was that it had been rented, taken out of storage, not fully acclimated to the environment of the Marriott and been exceedingly out of tune. Had we heard it the second day at least that could have been cleared up. On the other hand Mike heard what he heard, and he does know the sound of good piano as I played the choral fantasy as well as the Emperor Concerto on the amazing high end Ongoku/Marten Supremes setup at the boulder showroom. I’m not sure if he heard the piano before or after it had been tuned. If bad…he’d have known..if good he’d have known. Its possible it was an old used piano carted out for hotel lobbies and non discriminating occasions. (And it was placed with a stariway wall witing 2 feet of tghe left of the piano and a 10-12 foot passageway to the right of the pianist, and the low ceilingt wall to the elevators about 20 ‘ behind the piano..hardly a good place at that for resonance. but still with the top up it should have sounded good after the tuning unless it was ready for a total rebuild.
Correction – the Steinway was definitely NOT playing in the normal range for that calibre of piano before it was tuned (and possibly not after but I didn’t hear it again.