Musings

A Peek Into the World of Henry Studley

Now that the rough/first draft of VIRTUOSO: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley is in the computer I can now focus on those areas of the manuscript that need beefing up.  One of those areas was the dearth of description regarding the possible daily activities of Studley in the Poole Piano Company when he was building the tool cabinet and work bench.  That information has been very hard to find.

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Fortunately I came across a shop in Charlottesville, two hours away, that was dedicated to the restoration, preservation, and care of fine old pianos.  Owner Tom Shaw (right) and historical piano specialist Randolph Byrd (left) were a tremendous source of encouragement and information.  Their framed poster of the Studley cabinet is jut out of sight on the right.

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What made me excited to visit them was the breadth of their activities, plus the fact that Tom’s grandfather was a piano craftsman in Boston beginning in 1907, in other words, a contemporary of Studley’s.  Here Tom is proudly showing me his grandfather’s piano tool kit, which his grandfather made himself.  It put food on the table, and you can’t ask for much more than that.

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The one and only known portrait of Studley depicts him as an “action man” at the Poole Piano Company.  His task would have been to assemble a kit like this one (this is for a grand piano, but you get the idea) into a perfectly functioning mechanism that would produce beautiful noise whenever the keys were pressed down.

 

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I even got to see the working of one of the tools identical to Studley’s for adjusting some part of the action mechanism.

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One of the final steps before assembling the action is “sighting the hammers” in order to make sure they are aligned and evenly graduated.  While this is for a grand piano action, the process for an upright would be conceptually identical.

Gentlemen, thank you for pushing back the boundaries of my ignorance considerably.  A copy of the book will wing its way to you when it is available.