>Those who believe that greater understanding of actions is arrived at >through more and more detailed quantification should take more piano lessons. > Three pages of spreadsheets will not reveal as much about a piano as three >measures of playing by educated fingers. [Bob Hohf] >This may sound >incredibly unscientific, but I feel I can determine if the inertia level in a >piano will be acceptable to a majority of pianists by using certain licks. >[Ken Sloane] We struggle for quantification of semi-quantifiable things or of isolated parts of systems either to understand the systems better or to achieve more uniform and/or predictable results. Quanitification is nothing new in piano work, nor is the search for more revealing descriptors. However, piano work consists of thousands of tradeoffs, and there's no substitute for good sense, experience, and shared knowledge, all of which which we can always use more of. There is no one best setup - we consider the needs of the pianist and the limitations of the piano, then choose one from a range of acceptable setups. One of the best quick-and-dirty inertia tests I use is to put one hand on the low tenor and one on the low treble, take five notes in a bunch with each hand, and just bounce them up and down, pp to ff. Approximate time investment, three seconds. I don't know what it weighs - some keyboards just feel too sloggy, and get further exploration. Bob Davis University of the Pacific Stockton, CA
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