1 HE PROPER PLACING OF THE PIANO FROM THE STANDPOINTS OF EFFECTIVENESS, 
COMFORT AND DECORATION 
by Harold Donaldson Eberlein 
T HE proper placing of the piano is a matter that usually re¬ 
ceives too scant attention. It presents several problems for 
solution, and the problems are 
usually left unsolved. The piano 
is ordinarily an awkward thing 
to manage, and its weight makes 
it difficult to shift, so that when 
it is once established in a position 
that seems to answer tolerably 
well, in nine cases out of ten it 
is allowed to remain there, and 
the owners do not trouble their 
heads over the fact that there 
are positively right and wholly 
wrong places for pianos, and 
that the rightness and wrongness 
are determined by fixed princi¬ 
ples based upon sound reasons. 
The fixed reasons that ought 
to govern piano placing are to 
be considered under two aspects 
— first, the purely practical, re¬ 
garding the preservation of the 
instrument in the best possible 
and most effective condition and 
at the same time the convenience 
and comfort of the player; sec¬ 
ond, the decorative aspect, which 
is highly important and not to be 
neglected if the appearance of the room in which the piano stands 
is a matter of any concern to the possessors. Common disregard 
of both practical and decorative 
principles in piano placing is re¬ 
sponsible for completely ruining 
many a good instrument and 
spoiling many a room whose ar¬ 
rangement would otherwise have 
decorative merit. It is Scarcely 
too much to say that in the ma¬ 
jority of houses,pianos are either 
in a poor or distinctly bad posi¬ 
tion from one point of view or 
the other, and, not infrequently, 
both the physically practical and 
decorative considerations seem 
to have been altogether ignored. 
A piano is an exceedingly deli¬ 
cate and sensitive mechanism 
and strongly susceptible to all at¬ 
mospheric variations. Heat and 
cold, dampness and dryness, af¬ 
fect it to a marked degree, and 
not only does it get out of tune 
through ordinary expansion and 
contraction induced by changes 
in temperature, but the well-be¬ 
ing of its whole physical condi¬ 
tion is jeopardized when those 
From every aspect of decoration, light and efficiency, the position shown here 
is ideal 
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