shiel family piano – part 2
my call for some expert piano knowledge has been answered – piano blogger david stumbled by the blog somehow today and had this to say about the shiel family piano:
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…from what I could tell from your photo, your piano is what is commonly referred to as an “English†upright. Made mostly from the 1840s to 1860s, most specimens of this type found in the US came here at the end of World War II after being sold to American GIs by English farmers for the average price of $50.
This type of piano doesn’t have as much frame support as modern pianos and generally are tuned about a half step below standard (which was the standard of the period). Don’t get excited about antique value, though. In my entire career I never saw but one of these valued at more than a few hundred dollars and it was in near-perfect condition.
don’t worry, i’m not under any illusions as to the value of the piano. lets just say, i’m not booking an appearance on antiques roadshow. first things first though, i’m in australia not the states (something that i guess is not immediately apparent if you’re a first time visitor here).
but that doesn’t make this explanation any less plausible. the grainy photo from my last post was not very clear, but the piano has the mark of “R Gors & Kallmann Berlin” on the front:
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Gors & Kallmann – from a quick google search – were a german piano manufacturer established in 1877, who i think still manufacture and sell pianos in the UK. my piano looks similar, though not identical, to this one, another gors & kallmann piano which according to its owner was manufactured between 1900 and 1910, which is in the same ballpark as the stab that my wisened piano tuner took at the shiel family piano.
david’s thorough blog goes into a bit more detail about english uprights, which are not actually strictly “english”:
99% of the pianos found in the American used piano market listed as “English uprights†date between about 1850 and the early 1880s. Most were bought by American soldiers in the latter days of World War II and shipped home. Most have only a partial cast iron frame and thus cannot sustain the stresses involved in tuning to modern standard pitch. Most were designed to be tuned lower than A-440.
so whether or not my piano is actually german or english, it definitely has something in common with your english uprights – i could be wrong because i’m hopelessly out of my depth when it comes to looking inside pianos, but it definitely seems to have a cast iron frame, which explains the lower pitch. fascinating stuff.
david pulls no punches when it comes to his opinions on english uprights:
These instruments can be refinished and made to look nice if you are decorating part of your home with antiques. However, you will need to buy another piano if someone is actually going to play.
snap! thanks david, great to have people who actually know stuff wander past the blog. but to nail down the exact heritage of this piano, it seems thats going to require a bit more investigation.
i’m keen to figure out where the piano has come from, even if its completely worthless, a cheap-and-nasty knockoff from a bygone era. note to self: quiz nan about the shiel family piano.
That explains a lot… I play piano and have “near perfect” pitch (does anyone REALLY have “perfect” pitch?? If they did, it must be very difficult listening to 99% of music… anyways…), but never knew the stuff about certain pianos being tuned down a semitone. When visiting friends/relatives I’d find their piano was tuned down and just thought it was outrageously out of tune.
You’re always learnin’!
hey nerida!
its funny, i’ve always thought that it would be amazing to have perfect pitch, that it would make it 10 times easier to write & play music – and i’m sure it would be handy – but i’m reading “musicophilia” at the moment and oliver sacks details a few case studies of people with absolute pitch. he definitely hints at it being a mixed blessing, that a lot of people with full-on perfect pitch simply can’t handle things being out of tune – they can hear each individual note so clearly that they sometimes come to associate them with colors or other concepts – like C is a vivid red and D is clear blue, and to hear a note between C and D is this completely disorienting and uncomfortable experience.
i’m actually a bit skeptical about this – i’m not sure that everyone with perfect pitch feels necessarily hedged in by it, locked into the western scale and completely aghast at anything outside of it. that probably just says more about the individual case studies, that they have been brought up within the paradigm of classical music, where everything is structured and codified and whatever. dunno. just a random thought. musicophilia is a good read.
nonetheless i’m envious of your ‘near perfect’ pitch
yeah, what about balkan musicians & middle-eastern & asian musicians, where the music isn’t locked into the western scale & there are “notes between notes”… like maqams and other “microtonal” scales that are often hard or impossible to notate under the western system… they sometimes sound “dissonant” to the western ear, but they have their own system & are structured in their own way… the point being that if you had a musician of such “microtonal” music who has “perfect pitch” and a western scale-oriented musician with “perfect pitch”… are they gonna feel “jarred” by the same notes being “out” or is one gonna think “that’s out” and the other “that’s in”?
I guess I feel sorry for someone who can’t enjoy music if they’re a few “bum” notes… they’d suffer more often than they’d enjoy most any live music… and even a lot of recorded music… I’ve got a bit of a “blues mentality”, maybe… a few “bum” notes adds character… hehe…
interesting posts of late, Mr Shiel…
I think Tim hit the point well when mentioning the paradigm of classical music… aside from the case studies of Oliver Sacks, in the context of “non-western” music I think that microtones sound fine and would to anyone who has an appreciation of said music. In the context of the 12-tone western scale, the microtones “don’t belong”, as a general rule. And I think intent would have a lot to do with it, as opposed to just hitting a “bum” note. When you start talking about blues where you get into sliding between tones – something that also happens in modal folk music – that’s another facet. I think that if someone has only been exposed to western 12-tone music they would feel that it was jarring or dissonant; conversely, I think someone only exposed to microtonal music would find 12-tone music bland and a bit too “constructed”.
That said, I do enjoy listening to certain western bands/singers who aren’t limited by the hegemony of the 12-tone scale, whether intentional or not; not all, though!
I didn’t know about the tuned-down pianos either, very interesting. Prompted me to bugger off to the ever-authoratitive (*cough*) Wikipedia and do some reading. This bit was pretty interesting:
History of pitch standards in Western music
The only thing I’d add to the comments about perfect pitch, microtones and stuff is that my pitch sucks and I still find non-Western tunings much much easier to deal with than a pop song with an element out of tune. Maybe comes back to perceived intent – the former sounds like the performers know what they’re doing (or if it doesn’t, I’m ignorant of what would make it sound “wrong”) while the latter sounds like someone just cocked something up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XgIZSuZM7c
I love my Gors & Kallmann too! Thanks guys. Mine dates from 1941-1950 so I’ll think of those war heroes and dancing around the piano for a “Jolly ‘ol time” together. BTW mine isn’t too bad with Telemann and Bach, nor 1960s pop so i suppose its what kinda guy ya are. LOL. Hoorah and long live the Gors & Kallmann. Cheers x
This piano is indeed valued betwwen 5000.00 and 7000.00.