[CAUT] Lighter Touchweight

[Fred Sturm]

On 10/18/07 11:24 AM, "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> wrote:

> I'm seeing a
> tendency in this thread to address the customer complaint of too heavy an
> action by pursuing certain perceptual tricks (adding dip, making the piano
> brighter, etc.) which may end up to be chasing the untamed ornithoid, as it
> were.
    I'd like to respond to the notion of "perceptual tricks." I don't
believe this is really the case at all, and would argue on the contrary
against jumping to conclusions and doing relatively irreversible things
addressing weight and leverage. Why do I recommend looking at regulation (or
voicing) FIRST? Experience. Just three days ago I was talking to a piano
faculty member, and asked her what she thought of the current condition of
the pianos in the recital hall (I try to do this regularly). She said the #1
piano had developed a very heavy touch recently, and was very hard to play.
What had happened recently? Another piano faculty member had asked me to
"soften the hammers" on that very piano. So it "felt" heavier. I guess that
as a pianist I am very sympathetic to the perception of my fellow pianists,
and quite aware that they don't know the mechanics, they just know the
response they get from the instrument. Hence, they are very apt to
misdiagnose.
    I weighed in in an earlier post suggesting a look at drop. I had very
good reasons to do so. It seems to me, based on my experience in the field,
that a majority of regulators don't really understand this regulation step,
and that excessive drop is pretty standard for most techs without high level
training. They increase dip to "improve checking," or "avoid double-strike,"
or because they fail to reproduce dip in the piano on the bench, and
regulate dip to where it ends up at full keydip. It is very common to see
drop far beyond twice the optimum parameters.
    This has a very noticeable effect on touch. Contact with the drop screw
is much earlier in the keystroke, so there is spring resistance earlier. The
spring resistance becomes much larger than it needs to be because the spring
is compressed more. There is a much longer frictional interface between jack
and knuckle. There is a feedback to the key when the hammer, midway or so
through its rebound to the check hits the rep lever. And there is a lack of
a crisp simultaneous contact of drop screw and letoff button to jack tail.
Usually there is a very soggy and inconsistent point during the keystroke
where drop contact occurs, leading to a very uncertain feel.
    I think it is responsible policy always to recommend revisiting
regulation and possibly voicing before jumping in and changing weight,
moving capstans or balance pins, changing knuckles, etc. If you are very
experienced at action "custom re-design," that is one thing. If you aren't,
it is far more likely that you will do harm than good, judging from various
butcher jobs I have seen which were done by people with very good intentions
but not enough knowledge and skill.
    In any case, the first line of attack should always be to see what can
be done to refine and customize (or "regularize and optimize") the
regulation and voicing. Only then should various redesign possibilities be
considered, and only if one is competent to do so. (Of course, being a caut
means possibly that you get a chance to experiment and maybe become
competent at such things).
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico