Michael, you worked a lot on Fourier. So you obviously know more than I do. Surely you are joking. Will a lighter hammer produce more attack noise? Less loudness, brighter sound? After a time the string will have ist characteristic movement. (Your words).Would the sound be different in the beginning? How long is the time span? On my desk is a pile of piano books. They talk of a lot of details, exept hammer weight (mass). One textbook even says explicitely: to talk about hammer weight is not necessary! That is the reason why I put this on the list and so far I received a lot of interesting input. The only problem left for me is to find access to sources like "July 1756 edition of Firefly Watch Journal pages 1447-1449". The hammer weight is the last question I will put here. How does it influence the piano sound. If you can help me with reachable sources, please... I promise not to overload the list with my inputs any more. By the way: (if you allow a lastlast question) How does the arrival of the digital piano influence the piano technicians. I think, the digital piano is the future! (Except high end top level super pianos.)Have some electronics training! Don't say, they cannot deliver timbre, or sensitive sound modulation. Recall what a mechanical piano can do: the player presses a key, either slow or fast. Then he releases the key and the tone ends. That's it all! The only way to influence the piano sound is the speed of the keypress/release. And this action can be sensed by electronic switches. According to the measured speed the sound will be processed. Today's cutbacks are not a good counterargument e.g. passive string resonance (if I hold down a key and play some other keys, don't know better english words..)is only a software problem and will eventually be there. I have seen pianists approaching with contempt and laughter and leaving lost in thought, from the digital thing. Yours Helmut Wabnig wabi@net4you.co.at
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