School pianos can get a bit of rough treatment over the years. On one of the school pianos I tuned recently, the music desk (the little fold-down “tray” to rest sheet music on), was pretty smashed up, and held on partly with sellotape.
The Principal Teacher of Music mentioned having seen a music tray that ran the whole length of the keyboard. As an experiment, I got some mahogany mouldings, and made a longer replacement music tray, which you can see here.
The original music desk on these Welmar/Marshall & Rose pianos had the little brass bookholders. In schools they soon get lost. So the desk I made doesn’t have them, the music instead being retained by the “lip” of quarter-moulding at the front. It is slightly tricker to page-turn, but I hope the advantages of the new desk will outweigh this disadvantage. Two of the hinges are hidden behin the music book. For good measure, I could have aded another two hinges nearer the end, to make six in total. But it’s pretty solid as it is.
The colour is not a great match. I applied two coats of Button Polish (an amber-ish French Polish) and steel wool & wax. I was doing this job as an experimental “freebie” within a short timescale. It would be possible to make a better job given more time, and careful choice of wood stain.
I await with interest the teachers’ report on how well the new desk functions!
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