Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Quietening a piano

These would seem to be measures taken out of frustration.

No, those measures were taken because the pianos were too loud.

If anyone is interested, the Yamaha U1D was first in a second floor apartment and then in a row home ... neighbors were an issue though the piano in and of itself was loud.

The C3 was a great piano but it also was too loud. My wife couldn't watch TV or talk on the phone if I were practicing the C3. The piano was in our living room, not everyone has a room dedicated for the purpose of making music. There are many reasons why individuals want their instruments a little quieter.

Believe me, if acoustic pianos came with a $50 option and you could dial down the acoustic output to the level of a whisper, everyone would spend a little extra for that add on.

As I've stated many times, the action of a piano comes first for me with the sound a very close second. Some guys like loud pianos ... and some of us have tinnitus (as was already mentioned).

Dave,

Your personal history with acoustic pianos has been documented before here. I'm sympathetic to your tinnitus and don't want to seem cold, but IMO tinnitus isn't a good reason to punish a piano for being what it is by tacking carpet squares to its soundboard. OTOH, your Avant solution seems to make a lot of sense.

Maybe I should have written 'desperation' instead of "frustration", as in a desperate last resort measure.

Anyway, it seems unlikely that the OP has tinnitus, so hopefully measures needed don't become that drastic for him.

I carpeted down the U1D before I had the tinnitus. I was 20 or 21 when I bought a brand new full sized Yamaha upright ... over 40 years ago. The tinnitus has only been an issue for the last 20 years.

Why did you buy a piano that you thought was too loud?

They're all too loud!

If you think that, why buy a piano at all?

After you live with a piano for years the hammers get harder, the piano gets brighter and louder ... and it doesn't start out real quiet to begin with.

Acoustic pianos are loud. I know there are differences between pianos ... and even within the same model series but there's a lot of acoustic energy being created.

With an upright piano, you are right on top of the sound. The soundboard is vertical and the entire wall (within arm's reach) radiates the sound back to you.

A grand piano has a nice and big soundboard ... and it's loud.

As I wrote earlier in this thread, if there were a $50 option that would dial down the acoustic output of a piano to a whisper, I'd bet that there would be a lot of takers. I certainly would have bought it.

The original poster wants to quiet down his upright for his neighbor's benefit. That was my initial reasoning as well. It's difficult, especially in the US, to practice in an apartment or a row home with an acoustic instrument. I am also sensitive to loud noise ... and this was before the tinnitus.

For some folks, bigger is always better ... and louder is always better. I'd love to practice on a piano with the action of a none footer but I don't have the room ... and it would be even louder than my previous work horse, the C3.

What I have now is a good compromise ... though I'd still like to have the action of a nine footer.

In other words, you bought a piano, you did not take care of it, and now you have decided all pianos are like the piano that you did not take care of.

Yes, that's exactly what I did.

I'll leave this thread after this message. I spent a small fortune having my pianos tuned, regulated, and voiced. I spent a lot of time and energy making the pianos quiet initially for my neighbors and then for me.

I swear, it's always the silent profiles that make the most noise.

Why don't you take your ignorant anger somewhere else?

Um, happy Thanksgiving to you too. But I think you're reading too much into this. I mentioned that you presented rational considerations; but all the rest is my own commentary. I understand where you are coming from but there's room for pragmatic "band-aids".

What to do with acoustic foam is not rocket science. Anyone with it in hand will eventually figure out where it should go. Putting them between the posts or braces has already been mentioned. I really don't think foam should touch the soundboard. Also, acoustic foam is designed to have as consistent frequency response as possible; i.e., a balanced effect on both low, mid, and high frequencies. They have charts for this kind of thing for the stuff they sell on eBay.

But yes... wrong problem. If sound proofing is the goal then you need deflection/reflection and not absorption.

I was going to say that the kit doesn't affect the touch, so one's normal playing should still produce sound. But I suppose that if one has sensitive hearing and excellent pp or ppp technique one might think the piano is not working or something.



Makes perfect sense. Thanks.

My Piano is too Loud! ..... 'Oxymoron'?

If I can take a piano and keep it sounding reasonably close to the way it sounded when it was new, other people can do it, too. The only ignorance involved is saying that it cannot be done to someone who has done it.

I did not say that anyone can do it, nor that it is easy to find someone who can. There are too few people who do adequate piano work these days. (I am saying this after an afternoon of struggling with a piano that had a lot of bad work done to it.)

Nobody is question your skills as a technician, but it's a fact that many people find pianos too loud, especially grand pianos. They are built for power. I recently had a chat with Del Fandrich about this and he was in agreement that there is a real need for a quieter domestic piano design. You are accusing Dave of not maintaining his piano, but he wasn't complaining about a deterioration of his piano, he was saying it was always too loud. A U1 is already on the quiet side of the piano spectrum but it was still too loud. Pianos are powerful beasts and a lot of people are sensitive to the sheer volume they can produce if you work them. It's not a good solution just to try to play softer. A great many people find that pianos are just too powerful for the home, but they still want the tone and touch of an acoustic rather than a digital. Sound suppression becomes one of their few options - along with services like you provide. Is that really so hard to believe?

To go further on the topic, pianos are mechanical devices which convert muscular mechanical energy to sound energy. The amount of energy which is converted is going to stay somewhat stable. If you put in so many watts of mechanical energy into a piano, you will always get about the same amount of sound energy into it. That does not change much according to the size of the piano, which is why you can play a 5 foot piano together with a 9 foot piano. It also does not change much with the age of the piano, except that eventually the flexible parts, namely the strings and the felt, can suffer fatigue and become less flexible. That usually reduces the volume of sound.

What people experience as a piano "getting louder" is really changing the waveform of the sound. As the hammer felts get older, the initial strike on the strings produces a much differently shaped waveform if the hammers are not voiced properly. In general, that will have more energy in what we perceive as upper partials, and less energy in what we perceive as lower partials. This can move more energy into the range that we listen to most of the time, and that is the part that we listen to most intently. The piano may actually be getting softer overall, but we think it is louder.

Then you add to this that some frequencies carry better than others, some are absorbed by materials better than others, and everything gets confusing. One thing is that what someone playing the piano hears as being loud may not be perceived as loud in a different room or building. It is just hard to say.

One can change the acoustic characteristics of the piano, of the room, of the building, etc., and it the results will be different. How much of a difference it makes just depends. You can try what you want, and see what difference it makes.

As to how loud a piano is, concertos with orchestras have been written for just about every instrument imaginable, and it seems you can hear a lot of instruments just as well as you can hear a piano, so the piano is not that much louder.

True of some instruments, not true of others. The size of the orchestra is often matched to the loudness of the soloist. A 9 foot grand will have a decent size orchestra. A guitar will have a chamber orchestra or the guitar will be miked up. Saxophones are very loud instruments - so loud in fact that it is recommended to practice no more than 1 hour per day without ear protection - there you go, another instrument that uses suppression (for the player). I would guess that being a piano tuner, you would have significant hearing damage by now - particularly if you are middle aged or older, maybe you have lost the ability to appreciate just how loud pianos are to somebody with sensitive hearing.

Drummers and percussionists pretty much always use ear protection. There is such a thing as instruments that are too loud. Many violinists use an earplug in their left ear because it cops the brunt of the volume and it's so close. Flautists often do the same.

I think you are far too dismissive of the loudness factor, like you are so defensive of the perfection of the design of the modern piano, you can't take seriously what real people are telling you. You vastly overstate the potential of voicing. It is an important tool but you can't voice a piano down to half volume - not without turning your hammers into fairy-floss at least. But then it sounds terrible.

Why don't you entertain the thought that sensible use of sound suppression can be very useful and important for some people? It needn't rob a piano of all its tone either. On a grand, you can stuff acoustic foam underneath it and still hear the component of the sound coming from above the soundboard. The inverse wave from under the soundboard which is bouncing off the floor isn't so vital to the tone of a grand. Likewise, on an upright you can put acoustic foam behind it, but prop the lid open slightly and get back some of the lost frequencies that way. It really does work. I'm amazed that you can't stretch your mind to accommodate these ideas.

Pianos do great in big halls that can absorb the sound energy they are pumping out, but most homes struggle in some way with the power of the modern piano, hence the endless discussions on how to treat the room and yes, talk of foam suppression. In addition to technician's services, of course.

Ando,

I think if you were BDB's client and wanted him to quiet your piano because it was too loud for you, he would not find you crazy. He would probably suggest ways that he felt would work for you even if in his personal opinion your piano was not too loud.

I can't imagine though that he would take a tack hammer and tack carpet squares to your soundboard even if you offered to pay him to do it.

If you want to support Dave Horne here, you have to be all-in -- tacks in the soundboard, egg crates under the lid, fabric softener on the hammers, the whole enchilada.

It's simply not true that all pianos are too loud. And you're completely without reason to say that BDB overstates the potential of voicing. It's you guys who are dismissive of the taste and opinions of others, not BDB.

I said that concertos have been written for just about every instrument.

I have tuned for shows with most of the great sax players of the last 20 or so years, and I think that they all can play soft enough that they could practice for hours without hearing loss.

It is hard to say how much my hearing has deteriorated, but I still hear cedar waxwings when they migrate through the area, and I do not understand why so much electronic equipment have volume scales from 1 to 100 when I find them uncomfortable past 25 or less, and often find myself in the range from 1 to 10.

I am a staunch proponent of the built-in sound suppression system in pianos: If it is too loud, play it softer! That method does not distort the piano's sound. I really do not understand people who complain about how loud a piano is. The whole idea of a piano is that it can play at many different volumes. Besides, if you do not like it, you can find a quieter instrument to listen to.

This last comment offers nothing helpful to a person who wants to play the piano. Also, when you disagree with me and totally disregard everything I've said, you are also disagreeing with the likes of Del Fandrich. However I think that if he made the same statements as I did, you would take them a lot more seriously because of his expert status.