Neil, when I was six and my father got our first player piano
(an upright), he placed it in our family room, against one wall.

Now, all the walls in the family room except for the wall it shared
with the rest of the house had windows from about three feet above
the floor (one meter) to the ceiling, and all the houses in the
neighborhood were on 75' x 100' lots (24 x 33 m).  So the neighbors
weren't too thrilled with getting serenaded, as you can imagine.

What Dad did was to put 1/2-inch-thick panels of sound absorbing
material on the back of the piano.  (I'm not sure what it was; remember
I was about 6 or 7 when this was going on!)  It must have worked; the
neighbors didn't complain any more.

Or maybe that was because we got more than the initial dozen rolls and
they got some more variety in the serenades.

Ross Schacher
Marlboro, Massachusetts
dwarven1@verizon.net.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]