Grand Obsession: A Piano Odyssey

This book was like eating candy; I joyfully gobbled it up! I loved her journey in finding the right piano. I’m not a technical person, but I loved the nitty gritty of tuning and voicing a piano. My piano tuner was coming over, so I stayed up until until 4am to finish it. It was fun talking about his process. He heard about this book, so I passed it on to him.

Well... I'm not going to lie, I skimmed the last 50% of this book. It definitely started to plod along and go off on separate spiritualistic plot tangents. I got lost with a who's who of some of the many many characters in this book. It wasn't a great 'lets sit on the back deck and get lost in this story' kind of book. BUT..it was very informative. I learned quite a bit about voicing a piano, soundboards, dampers, hammers, the casing, etc. Half the things they did to the piano to try to replicate the original Grotian's sound she heard in the showroom I had never heard of. It was fascinating to learn how they file down the hammers or prick them to 'fluff' them up. Very interesting. There were many times though where I just sort of cringed at the 'too many cook's spoil the soup' sort of scenario. SO many things were being done to the piano, by folks with different techniques and opinions that it never had time to acclimate, adjust, resonate. Stop, reanalyze, let it sit through a season. It was one thing after another, after another, after another. Bad things happened to this poor piano, when the hammers were snapped off, that seriously made me cringe. Glad she got an original voiced set from the company after all that. I seriously wanted to say this lady was nuts..and maybe she slightly is (LOL and I dont mean that in a negative way! she's 'nuts' about her piano! )...BUT... when I get my piano tuned (which is every 6 months), I actually hate it. Its not for about another 3 weeks that the piano 'calms down' and I hear the resonance again. When its first tuned. the piano, to me, sounds 'tight', it loses the 'rounded, colorful' expression. It's a 'tink, tink, tink' sound. It totally loses harmonics. Something that Perri refers to also (I was glad to realize that 'tight' sound was not all in MY head.. someone else gets it! ha!). Once the strings have a chance to stretch out a tad, vibrate a bit more and thus resonate, I get the tonal quality back I like and the overtones. While I can hear this subtlety on my Yamaha, Perri obviously has a very defined ear and can hear it more and to an almost scientific degree. I also hear a tone shift when the sustain pedal is used. I brought that up to my piano tuner saying 'something is off' with the piano sometimes. We realized its when I'm using the sustain pedal and as the string's vibrations slow down over time as its not dampened, it does give a slight semi tone shift which is physics, of course. My ear can pick it up, most people wouldn't recognize that. (or care) So again..I wanted at first to say this lady is just really really picky - but then I had to admit..I have heard a few tonal discretions with my own piano (that was no where near what she paid for hers!). The one thing that surprised me was that she 'seriously considered' the Pearl River piano from China. Oh no! She would have hated that. They are NOT built to last. They are built cheaply and quickly. If she thought her Grotian lost tone quickly, she would have hated the Pearl River. I played one in the showroom when I went to by my piano. I, unlike Perri, wanted a 'rock and roll' piano. I wanted a wood stained spinet size to take the place of my very ancient Miller. I played the Pearl River, asked questions about it, was considering it. The piano store kept trying to get me to go for the black Yamaha. I said no- I dont like them It doesn't go with my home decor, I have no room for it, my friend has one and the tone is very muted and I don't like it. He said, just try it...I played the upright ebony Yamaha that I had no place in the house for; the sound was like night and day. I purchased the Yamaha. Its amazing. It chimes, the difference in sound between the Yamaha and Pearl River was astounding and made the Pearl River sound like a toy. (My friend's Yamaha IS very very soft and muted, mine however is not. Different model? Hammers? I dont know) I'm glad Perri came to peace with her piano and learned to love it, accept it and really cherish it for the beautiful instrument it is. Yes, many of us would give a limb to own something like that. LOL She is one persistent lady - but good for her! When you invest that much money into something like that, a once in a lifetime purchase, you deserve to have it be exactly what you want. Very interesting book, I learned alot. I wish I could hear this "Schubert tuning" in person sometime. Curious to hear what that is and the difference between that tuning and a standard tuning. Her technician Marc, was an angel. Very patient and caring guy.

I've been involved in the piano business for over 35 years, and I own a popular piano web site. By now I thought I'd pretty much heard and seen it all. But when I got this book I literally couldn't put it down.We can all be thankful that Perri's background as a reporter, author, and pianist came together when her "obsession" to find the perfect piano with the perfect sound drove her to write this extraordinary book based on her experiences.Her adventures reach far beyond the scope of the average piano buyer. In fact, she goes places even those of us "in the business" have never been. Luckily for all of us, she takes us along for the ride.From the Pacific Northwest to Piano Row in New York, from basement workshops to the Alps of Austria, Perri follows wherever her questions lead her. The more riddles she solves, the more new questions pop into her head, and off she goes again to chase down the answers.Along the way she meets some of the most interesting and talented characters in the piano business. From each of them she gathers a few more pieces of the puzzle she is trying desperately to solve.What is it that makes her "Marlene" (yes, she named her piano, and no, that isn't as odd as you might think) sound and play the way she does when everything is right? And more importantly, what caused Marlene to lose her voice, and how will she ever get it back?Perri will stop at nothing to find these answers, and that is part of the charm and fun of this book.For example, not content with the explanation of where her soundboard came from, or how it was made, Perri travels to Europe, hikes into the very forest where the trees used to build her piano's soundboard were cut, learns about how to select trees for tonewood, and then goes on to watch the craftsmen who actually created the soundboard and built the belly of her piano practice their art.Even if you have no interest in the piano at all, this book is a good read based on the sheer fun of following Perri on her adventures. And if you do have any interest in the piano (as I suspect you do or you wouldn't have read this far), this book is a must have!In it you will learn about the emotional effect music has on us all, and the camaraderie musicians of all stripes share. You will also learn more than you could have imagined about what goes into making and caring for a piano, and about the many people behind the scenes that contribute to the finished product.But most of all, you will learn why music in general, and the piano in particular, captures our hearts and minds and transports us to another place. Thank you, Perri Knize.- Frank BaxterFounder/OwnerPianoWorld.com

A well documented saga of Perri's search for the ideal piano. Her brush with real people and piano manufacturers is documented. Very interesting comments made by very interesting people within its pages - and a very good 'read'. May not be 'gripping' or 'un-put-downable' but a good bed-time book. As a now-retired professional piano tuner I both sympathise and empathise with her and am amazed by both what she discovered and how she described her findings. What a long suffering husband she must have!! Read this book to find out what I mean. Also, read the book and learn something about pianos!

I started off liking this book , I read the kindle sample then purchased. But while I enjoyed the first third or so I found the rest of it less enjoyable. I think as the authors obsession becomes more neurotic it becomes more disturbing to read, even the people around her such as the tuner seem to descend into over dramatized screaming fits and irrational behavior. I cant help but feel that what started off in the authors life as a genuine hunt for a piano she liked changed when the idea of making a book out of it started, making events exciting for the book took over from what would have been the normal course of the story which is a shame (for me).

I found the actual tale absolutely gripping, but thought it was let down by the style of writing - irritating historical present and sometimes descending to pedestrian or inetp use of language..

This is a great read, more like it please.

This was bought as a gift and I was very impressed with the service. My friend was delighted with the book.