Boogie Woogie music was invented on the upright piano in the 1930's. Of the three types of pianos (box, grand, and upright), the upright piano is the most recent invention being conceived in the 1800s. The design was refined in the 1870's and it was mass produced in the late 19th century.
Between 1900 and 1920 almost five million million pianos were sold in the United States and most were these "new" upright pianos.
The three most famous practitioners of Boogie Woogie were Albert Ammons, Pinetop Perkins, and Meade Lux Lewis. During this time and in the 1940's a Boogie Woogie craze swept America. Other piano players who were influenced by this craze include Pete Johnson, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Fats Domino.
After playing piano for a number of years I noticed that Boogie Woogie just doesn't sound "correct" when played on a grand piano. This is due to many factors, including how the strings are placed in three dimensional space within the room and how the sound reflects around the room. Another factor is that the bass notes ring out too much and it is very difficult to get a crisp punchy rhythmic bass line. Personally, I prefer to play a good quality upright piano instead of a grand piano for these and other acoustic and mechanical reasons. To me, the grand piano looks better, but the upright piano sounds better.
One way that I found to improve the grand piano sound was to invent a piano mute. This is a very simple device and amusing to tell people about. Take an ordinary roll of paper towels and remove the plastic wrapping. It is better to use cheap paper towels if you can, especially if you have a very expensive piano. The desired diameter of the roll should be about four to five inches. If the roll of towels is bigger than that, unroll it to about the correct diameter.
Then, place the roll of paper towels inside the piano directly on the bass piano strings. Align the roll so it is approximately centered horizontally on the strings and does not interfere with the piano action. THIS is the Piano Mute.
Now, play any rocking Boogie Woogie or highly rhythmic and fast left hand bass line. It sounds more crisp and none of the timbre of the notes has been compromised, There is no appreciable loss of the higher partials. However, now the notes don't ring out for as long a duration of time.
So, if you like to play fast and loud and hard and you are tired of playing on boomy, mushy, stuffy old conservative grand pianos. And, if you cannot find a good quality upright piano to play, then try using the Piano Mute. It will improve the sound of your grand piano and make it better at performing those Rock and Roll, Boogie Woogie Bass lines. Try it yourself. You will be amazed.
The Piano Mute -- make it yourself.
(drawing not to scale)
copyright (c) 2015
William Schaeffer
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reference:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/1900/filmmore/reference/interview/morath_piano.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano#The_modern_piano
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