Inertia

[Dennis Johnson]

At  2:09 PM 7/24/95 -0600, stanwood wrote:

>Be thankful that the new touchweight metrology allows us to, at the very
>least, get into the right ball park.  Before you tear it apart, I invite you
>try using it yourself and then share the results with us.
>
>
>DS

        I think it is helpful for me to distinquish between the "new
metrology" method and the endorsement of heavy hammers. I am very grateful
for your sharing these inspired new ideas for analysis and I know that it
will be some time for it all to get absorbed into my practice. Perhaps my
argument is stronger in the case of those beautifully designed turn of the
Century Steinway pianos. I get very uncomfortable at the thought of
retrofitting these pianos with "modern" actions, heavy hammers and
redesigned key ratios especially when we now finally have appropriate
replacements with original dimensions available---IMHO.

       It is probably no accident that our discussion of hammer weight and
leverage has always seemed to be secondary to the analysis of strike
weight/ratios in D. Stanwood's presentation of the new metrology. I
appreciate this very much.


Dennis Johnson
St. Olaf College