As a craftsman always trying to improve my craft. Experimenting becomes part of the process. It's well known that not only do you need good wood for soundboards, but, it has to be treated and conditioned properly. For example, musical instrument builders of the past would be careful to select wood that had been harvested in the winter, the reason for this is that the sap content would be low. I had become aware that violin makers would freeze their wood, because it was recognize that doing so had a permanent and desire-able effect. What does freezing do exactly? As you may know water expands when it freezes. This expansion makes the wood lighter. A lighter board responds faster than a board of the same size and mass, thus producing a lower tone. And this is what master builders are after. I simply transferred this idea to pianos. Although not accepted as yet, in this day of mass production when the bottom line is what matters, I personally experienced the wonderful effect freezing has and will always apply the technique to my soundboards in the future. Only time will tell if others will follow. Here is the article that came out in the Seattle-Post Intelligencer May 30, 2003. |
A-1 Pianoman
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| It got a cold in its notes |
| FREEZER NOT THE KEY TO PIANO TUNING |
By M.L.LYKE
P-I Reporter
P-I Reporter
EVERETT- Yesterday was a balmy 75 degrees on the Everett waterfront. But inside
Marine View Cold Storage, where the 5-foot baby grand awaited rescue, the
temperature held to a lung-scraping 10 below.
Marine View Cold Storage, where the 5-foot baby grand awaited rescue, the
temperature held to a lung-scraping 10 below.
Piano craftsman Chris Chernobieff crunched across the frosty floor, past the boxes of precracked
Dungeness crab and Alaskan king crab legs, full of anticipation.
Was his hypothesis correct? Would 24 hours in a freezer drop the piano's tone?
" I think it's the first time anyone has ever tried to do this to piano", said Chernobieff, a 42 year-old
piano tuner-restorer-builder-mover-composer-artist.
Chernobieff is the curious kind of renaissance dreamer who'd be as comfortable in the 17th
century as in the 21st. He's a self taught classicist, with a passion for Bach and Scarlatti. His
workingman hands, with stubby nails rimmed in black, dance like butterflies across the ivories of
his works-in-progrss.
The interior of the A-1 Pianoman shop on Grand Avenue-where a fine layer of wood dust coats
dismembered instruments- illustrates the free play of the craftsmans ideas.
In one corner is an ornate piano leg with horse heads and stars, one of three Chernobieff is
designing and carving. On workbenches are the piano tools he's endlessly inventing- devices to
measure the curves of a soundboard, or the degree of a hammer's drop.
His penciled compositions are scattered across piano tops and his crowded bookshelves contain
tomes on master musicians and scientists: da Vinci, Steinway, Stradivarius. It was a little book on
this last master violin maker- a simple paperback titled " Strativarius: Secret(s) of the Sound"- that
inspired Chernobieff's latest sub-zero experiment.
In the book, a Texas researcher named James Smith recommended freezing a violin to lower it's
tone, a process that can add Strativarian warmth and fullness to an instrument. "After freezing,
your violin will have a very good carrying power with the sweetest sound you ever heard," Smith
said.
If it worked on violins, reasoned Chernobieff, why not pianos?
He had a badly abused 1920's Aeolian baby grand piano with a cracked bridge that, if all else failed,
he could afford to take to the dump. On Wednesday, he and his assistant Dale Blindheim took the
piano, stripped of its legs, keys and strings, to cold storage at about 1pm.
Yesterday, after paying a $25 fee to the cold storage unit with the "crab and bait sign" outside, they
reclaimed it.
Chernobieff was clearly happy to see it in one piece. " At least the veneer didn't peel off," he said
as he and Blindheim rolled the Aeolian out the brine-scented frigid storage locker into the warm
day.
They were eager as boys as they worked, anxious to get the Aeolian back to the shop to check the
tone with a computerized "Verituner".
The Verituner had tested the soundboards tone Wednesday at a low-octave D.
Chernobieff had hoped it would drop to a C# after a 24 hour freeze.
But the piano that came in from the cold defied his scientific theory.
Instead of a C#, the Verituner showed that the pianos tone had actually raised a whole step, to E.
Chernobieff looked disappointed only for a flash. At least the tone changed, he said as he pounded
the soundboard like a drum. " And the sound is more resonant . Listen. "
Chernobieff is already planning his next experiment.
This time, he hopes to increase the density and strength of the wood in the piano's soundboard
using a simple household method.
He's going to boil it.
It's all about improving his craft, says the renaissance piano man, who laments the generic,
quick-paced modern manufacture of pianos. "The industry never experiments, " he says.
That's obviously not a problem at the little piano shop on Grand Ave, where all ideas are fair game.
" I do one piano at a time, "says Chernobieff, " and each piano gets better than the last. "
Dungeness crab and Alaskan king crab legs, full of anticipation.
Was his hypothesis correct? Would 24 hours in a freezer drop the piano's tone?
" I think it's the first time anyone has ever tried to do this to piano", said Chernobieff, a 42 year-old
piano tuner-restorer-builder-mover-composer-artist.
Chernobieff is the curious kind of renaissance dreamer who'd be as comfortable in the 17th
century as in the 21st. He's a self taught classicist, with a passion for Bach and Scarlatti. His
workingman hands, with stubby nails rimmed in black, dance like butterflies across the ivories of
his works-in-progrss.
The interior of the A-1 Pianoman shop on Grand Avenue-where a fine layer of wood dust coats
dismembered instruments- illustrates the free play of the craftsmans ideas.
In one corner is an ornate piano leg with horse heads and stars, one of three Chernobieff is
designing and carving. On workbenches are the piano tools he's endlessly inventing- devices to
measure the curves of a soundboard, or the degree of a hammer's drop.
His penciled compositions are scattered across piano tops and his crowded bookshelves contain
tomes on master musicians and scientists: da Vinci, Steinway, Stradivarius. It was a little book on
this last master violin maker- a simple paperback titled " Strativarius: Secret(s) of the Sound"- that
inspired Chernobieff's latest sub-zero experiment.
In the book, a Texas researcher named James Smith recommended freezing a violin to lower it's
tone, a process that can add Strativarian warmth and fullness to an instrument. "After freezing,
your violin will have a very good carrying power with the sweetest sound you ever heard," Smith
said.
If it worked on violins, reasoned Chernobieff, why not pianos?
He had a badly abused 1920's Aeolian baby grand piano with a cracked bridge that, if all else failed,
he could afford to take to the dump. On Wednesday, he and his assistant Dale Blindheim took the
piano, stripped of its legs, keys and strings, to cold storage at about 1pm.
Yesterday, after paying a $25 fee to the cold storage unit with the "crab and bait sign" outside, they
reclaimed it.
Chernobieff was clearly happy to see it in one piece. " At least the veneer didn't peel off," he said
as he and Blindheim rolled the Aeolian out the brine-scented frigid storage locker into the warm
day.
They were eager as boys as they worked, anxious to get the Aeolian back to the shop to check the
tone with a computerized "Verituner".
The Verituner had tested the soundboards tone Wednesday at a low-octave D.
Chernobieff had hoped it would drop to a C# after a 24 hour freeze.
But the piano that came in from the cold defied his scientific theory.
Instead of a C#, the Verituner showed that the pianos tone had actually raised a whole step, to E.
Chernobieff looked disappointed only for a flash. At least the tone changed, he said as he pounded
the soundboard like a drum. " And the sound is more resonant . Listen. "
Chernobieff is already planning his next experiment.
This time, he hopes to increase the density and strength of the wood in the piano's soundboard
using a simple household method.
He's going to boil it.
It's all about improving his craft, says the renaissance piano man, who laments the generic,
quick-paced modern manufacture of pianos. "The industry never experiments, " he says.
That's obviously not a problem at the little piano shop on Grand Ave, where all ideas are fair game.
" I do one piano at a time, "says Chernobieff, " and each piano gets better than the last. "
Retrieving a 1920
Aeolian grand piano from
its cold storage place
between frozen crab legs
in the Everett waterfront.
Aeolian grand piano from
its cold storage place
between frozen crab legs
in the Everett waterfront.
"Ten Degrees
below zero
on a balmy
day.
brrr..."
below zero
on a balmy
day.
brrr..."
"I think this is
the first time
anyone has
ever tried to
do this to a
piano. "
the first time
anyone has
ever tried to
do this to a
piano. "
" AT
LEAST
THE
VENEER
DIDN'T
PEEL
OFF.."
LEAST
THE
VENEER
DIDN'T
PEEL
OFF.."
Seattle (206) 405-1993 Bellevue (425) 646-1033
Frozen Piano Article
