Sunday, December 30, 2007

Introducing...Joeltoven



Joel is filling the house with beautiful sounds of piano music




The piano is on the eastern wall of the living room, to the left when you walk in the front door. We painted the wall a moss green. The piano, besides sounding incredible, is a beautiful instrument.



**Joel is now talking**

I will be describing the piano in a more technical nature. I posted the previous photo, especially for Christopher, because I thought it might interest him, as it did me. The piano is branded "Cable Nelson," which is an American piano manufacturer prevalent in the early to mid 20th century. The brand was recently bought out by Yamaha, who, along with Steinway & Sons are generally accepted in the piano community to be perhaps the two best mass produced piano manufacturers in the world (not counting companies like Bösendorfer in Austria that produce only a few hundred pianos a year). So the piano was designed and built by Yamaha. Their "Cable Nelson" line has a lot of the character and quality of the expensive Yamaha student pianos, but reduced in cost. One example of the cost reduction is that they have a soundboard formed of a few "slices" of spruce laminated together, instead of solid spruce, saving about $2000USD from the start. It's a wonderful sounding piano. I think it's the nicest piano I play on a regular basis (between home, school, etc), perhaps only second to the 9' Concert Grand Steinway at East 91st Street Church. It's a real joy to finally have a real piano so I can learn piano "right".

1 comment:

Anny Kraal said...

Hi Joel,
Wow what an amazing beautiful instrument and your description is second to none; but now: play for us will you..... maybe mum can place a little video clip??
And please don't forget to put us on your mailing list when the invitations go out for your first concert!!
Best wishes,
Adrian & Anny