Doug Clark

Today was the big day, getting the renovated piano back into the studio! I was not dissappointed. Mikhail Bogomoly and his team totally transformed this instrument. I love it already. The control is fantastic, even for my out of practice fingers. It needs a final tuning, and once over, which I will have done by Minay Gopenko, but I'll try it out for a few weeks to let it acclimate here and settle in. I'll also get a few opinions of my talented friends to see what they think.

Today was a very exciting day! I took a trip with my friend and fine pianist Craig Nohl up to Jimmy's Piano Restoration in Yonkers, NY, to meet Mikhail Bogomolny, the amazing Steinway restoration specialist who has overseen my project, to check how it came out. I am so excited and thrilled with the results! The action is a dream. A totally new experience compared to what it was. Such control, and not at all hard to play. The tone and power are wonderful, and we will make adjustments when we get it in the studio here, to make it even more as I want it, and to work in this space. The bass is gorgeous. The soft pedal gave beautiful bell-like tones I was looking for in the upper mids. Goose bump time. The insides look amazing, from beautifully refinished soundboard and plate, down to the refinished dampers (total suprise to me), and shiny new pins and hardware. In short, it is a dream come true for me, to have this kind of instrument, now in this kind of shape. It was treated with the love it deserves. And I'm very excited for my Glass Bottom Studios customers, who will love and appreciate it for their projects.

The last hurdle, is that back in 2003, when the piano underwent a restoration and refinishing from a different shop in New Hartford, NY, for some reason, they put on legs from a Steinway M, not the correct larger ones for the B. That causes some slight instability, which bothers me. So we are looking into getting that taken care of, to complete the restoration the right way.

It's coming back together now! Next step is damper bushing redo - the last one was done incorrectly. Too much play for the damper wires. Also some good news that this is in fact a Steinway B, and not an A3 (there had been some question raised). Target date to go and give it a test run is August 9!