[CAUT] lighter touchweight

[Alan McCoy]

Jeff,

Others have offered good info technically. However, it would be a good idea
to really explore with the pianist exactly what they mean by "feel lighter."
It could indeed be a mechanical issue. But it might instead be an issue of
tone perception leading them to feel the action as heavy. The interplay of
tone and touch are wound tightly together for many pianists and the
vocabulary used to describe the problem often reflects this. So touch
problems come out as tone problems, and vice versa.

Alan


-- Alan McCoy, RPT
Eastern Washington University
amccoy at mail.ewu.edu
509-359-4627


> From: Jeff Farris <Jfarris at mail.utexas.edu>
> Reply-To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" <caut at ptg.org>
> Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:33:53 -0500
> To: <CAUT at ptg.org>
> Subject: [CAUT] lighter touchweight
> 
> Hi List,
> 
> I have a customer who wants his 1975 Baldwin 6'8" grand to feel
> lighter. It was virtually unused for many years and recently had an
> action reconditioning and regulation. It weighed off pretty
> reasonable. Downweight averaged low 50's to 50 and upweight averaged
> upper 20's to 30. Friction seemed low if anything. There isn't a lot
> of lead in the keys, as much as four weights in some of the lower
> bass. The hammers have enough "extra" material in the cove to remove
> some in an arc shape.  I'm wondering if doing only that would result
> in enough weight loss to make much difference. Has anyone done this
> procedure not in conjunction with leading, etc. and received good
> results?
> 
> Sorry if you already received this. I tried to send this message
> yesterday from a different source computer and don't know if it went
> out. :)
> 
> Thanks,
> -- 
> Jeff Farris
> Piano Technician
> School of Music
> UT Austin
> mailto; jfarris at mail.utexas.edu
> 512-471-0158