<story><title>For More Pianos, Last Note Is Thud in the Dump</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/arts/music/for-more-pianos-last-note-is-thud-in-the-dump.html?_r=2&amp;ref=arts</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>cfinke</author><text>A piano that has not been regularly tuned will lose its ability to stay tuned, turning it into a very large and heavy place to display sheet music, just like a car that never gets an oil change will eventually become an immobile scrap metal sculpture.&lt;p&gt;Shortly after we got married, my wife and I took possession of a 1918 upright piano that had not been tuned in a long time. We didn&apos;t know enough about pianos to know better, so we spent considerable time and effort to transport it 40 miles and up a short flight of stairs into our new home... only to dismantle it by hand less than a year later and slowly throw it away. It couldn&apos;t be tuned, and it took up too much room to keep if it wasn&apos;t going to be played. I think we sold the cast iron soundboard as scrap for a few dollars, and I did save some of the larger pieces of wood, which I used to build a bed for my two-year old son a few years later.&lt;p&gt;As a side note, if you&apos;ve never taken apart a piano, I highly recommend it.  You get a specific understanding of its inner workings, even if you think you already know how it functions.&lt;p&gt;Pictures of the piano disassembly:&lt;p&gt;With the keyboard removed: &lt;a href=&quot;http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2193/2299985304_d0b38313f6_b.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2193/2299985304_d0b38313f6_b.j...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The keys that I saved for a long time but never found a use for: &lt;a href=&quot;http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2091/2299984652_a024f4a05e_b.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2091/2299984652_a024f4a05e_b.j...&lt;/a&gt; (They&apos;re like teeth that have been knocked out: much much longer than you&apos;d expect.)&lt;p&gt;The soundboard exposed, and the huge screwdriver I had to buy (see the top of the photo) to remove the screws attaching it to the wooden back: &lt;a href=&quot;http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3105/2300002756_92e8503676_b.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3105/2300002756_92e8503676_b.j...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The soundboard removed: &lt;a href=&quot;http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2217/2300002188_68c614d900_b.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2217/2300002188_68c614d900_b.j...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just a portion of the screws and other hardware holding it together: &lt;a href=&quot;http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2095/2299206761_ae640697d9_b.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2095/2299206761_ae640697d9_b.j...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>For More Pianos, Last Note Is Thud in the Dump</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/arts/music/for-more-pianos-last-note-is-thud-in-the-dump.html?_r=2&amp;ref=arts</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>digitalsushi</author><text>I am not a piano player, or even an official player of any musical instrument.  I don&apos;t know how to read music.&lt;p&gt;A year ago, we were offered an upright Kimball built in 1970 by my newly acquired in-laws.  My father in law is a portly fellow and insisted we move it ourselves, but I instead paid exactly 300 dollars to have it moved the 14 miles from Exeter to Lee.&lt;p&gt;We let it adjust to the humidity in our house for a half a year, and then we paid exactly 175 dollars to have it tuned.  As subjective as this is, the man who tuned it said &quot;it was a D and now it is a B&quot;.  He said that the Kimballs are a very cheap piano with a cheap sound, and tried to sell me a grand piano for 5000 dollars used.  It would have required I vacate my home office to the basement.&lt;p&gt;He had other pianos for sale, and some were as affordable (but as cheap) as the 300 dollars I paid for a free piano.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s immensely pleasurable having a piano next to where I program.  I don&apos;t know what I am doing, but I suspect this is a lot of the allure - I sit there and poke, and figure out my programming challenge of the day while my fingers are occupied.  We all know full well how the frontal lobe needs to be engaged for the &quot;coprocessor&quot; to have a chance at resolving our issues for us.&lt;p&gt;The piano is about 4 feet wide and barely 2 feet from the wall.  Since the bench sits underneath, this is frankly not a huge investment in space.  I recommend a piano highly to the non-player due to its affordability and its distraction properties, my own version of prayer beads I use while debugging in my head.</text></comment>