"Gracious!" said the little old lady, "The music is too loud!"

She might have been attending a contemporary Rock Concert, or perhaps
the restaurant harpist three tables away began a new song.  Whatever the
cause, the complaint "The music is too loud" often signifies: "I'm not
interested in the music -- I want to talk, not listen!"

Thus my wife leaves the room and shuts the door when I start the piano
playing.  That's okay.  The next-door neighbor closes his windows if he
wants my music at lesser volume.  That's okay, too.  And, when I want
background player-piano music of my choice at "background music"
loudness, I play a cassette recording and adjust the volume control
to my pleasure.

No pneumatic or solenoid piano is made with a true volume control.  I
asked Wayne Stahnke if the Boesendorfer SE system could be so equipped.
He said that it might be possible, but that there was no need to, since
the buyers were interested only in accurate reproduction of SE
recordings.

The Marantz Pianocorder had controls which established the highest and
lowest solenoid voltages corresponding to the highest and lowest
intensity commands.  The soft-level control was seldom changed -- it
remained in the setting where the softest notes would speak reliably.
Adjusting the high-level control would expand or compress the dynamic
range.  Most of the Pianocorders I hear in public rooms have the high-
level control set at minimum, and hardly any musical "expression" is
evident.  But the little old ladies can talk okay.

(The 4-bit binary control scheme in the Pianocorder was intended to
somewhat emulate Duo-Art, but during early production the binary
weighting values were altered from the integral 1-2-4-8 relationships.
This resulted in a fold-back of the transfer curve, and meant that the
entire library of music needed correction.  Only the last sessions of
live artist recordings were completely edited and corrected to
correspond with the idiosyncrasies of the machine.  The earlier
recordings received no compensating editing, and so had annoying
aberrations in intensity.  Compressing the dynamic range with the
playback level controls actually made the performance sound better, even
though the dynamics were squashed to almost nothing.)

The Ampico A and B pianos also have a "Subdue" mechanism which
compresses the dynamic range, thereby reducing the overall volume level
but also reducing the separation between the musical theme and
accompaniment.  It's better than nothing, and allows one to hold a
conversation near the piano.  The classical music is pretty lifeless,
but I guess that's okay.

The owner of the big, old-time piano store explained that the volume of
a reproducing piano often overwhelms a new owner.  "When I return to the
store there is often a telephone message waiting for me, from the wife
of the new owner, asking, 'How do I make it play softer?'  Sometimes the
remedy includes thick sheepskins on and under the piano."

I suspect that some Boesendorfer owners also feel overwhelmed, and
revert to playing audio recordings on a fancy music system, with a true
"Volume Control" which preserves the dynamics and allows conversation
nearby.  I wish that my pneumatic piano was as controllable.

Robbie Rhodes