musical thoughts

I’ve been a Rhodes player for 27 years, but I am also now a Wurlitzer player.

At the risk of gloating, I got this piano for free from a Craigslist posting just before Christmas. Someone got their kids a Casio and this was taking up room so it had to go. I called six minutes after they made their post and was the lucky new owner.

This is a Model 206A, which was a classroom piano. It lacks the tremolo feature of the 200, and it has an integrated wooden pedestal base, but it is the same mechanism as a 200A otherwise. Mine came badged as a “Musitronic Student Electronic Piano.” It came to me in nearly mint condition, which is amazing.

It has a neutral tan colored case:

Here’s a closeup of the nameplate:

And the serial number plate:

I believe it was made in 1976 (as was my Rhodes):

This has two 8-inch speakers in the base (none in the top):

It did not come with Ginsu knives, but it has a cutting board :

The sustain pedal cable had the nipple ripped off one end. I replaced that with a bike cable with no problems.

The other thing I needed to fix was the power–someone just taped in an old lamp cord (206A pianos got thier power from a big multicore cable connecting several of them to the instructor piano). They tied the ground and hot wires together, which is hugely unsafe. That’s now replaced with a correctly grounded IEC receptacle (salvaged from some broken network equipment) and cord.

All reeds work and are in tune, it’s amazing. And I really enjoy playing it. Most Wurlis I have played feel like I am going to smash them to splinters, but this feels good and solid, and responds well to my touch. I do plan to regulate it to get some better response in the soft end. I do not plan to chop it, or mod a tremolo into it. I can do tremolo very easily in software so I am keeping this as close to original as possible for now.

Video and audio will follow shortly, so stay tuned.