More plucking

[ricca@nuct.udallas.edu]

Keith,

In regards to my statement "...by plucking, you are largely removing
any tonal characteristics which depend on the dynamic level. In addition,
you are removing the tonal influence of the action..." I did not mean
to imply that the two sentences were directly related. Hopefully, the
second sentence is fairly clear - you aren't using the action, so the
action has no effect when you pluck. The action regulation can have an
effect on the tone, though: since the hammer shank flexes, depending
upon the regulation you will have different strike points. Perhaps it
is only a small difference, but it is a difference and it may have a
large effect.

I should expand a bit on the first sentence. The reason that dynamics
influences tones so greatly is because of the non-linear characteristics
of the hammer. When you pluck a string, you are generally doing so in
a way which is linear: you pluck harder, and the tone gets louder - the
change in tone is typically much smaller than when a hammer is used.

To answer your question: I would expect that regulation has a big influence
on dynamic level - I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

Barney Ricca
ricca@nuct.udallas.edu