String breakage

[Mike Imbler]

Kuang wrote
>	Right now I'm trying to figure out why alot of pianists believe a
>note played at same dynamic can have different tone quality depends on how
>you play it (there might be a reason behind it).  Can this be easily
>explained?  Or is this a wives' tale?  Can someone with a very good
>understanding of action/mechanism express their opinions?  Are modern
>pianos designed so pianists can change the tone quality while playing
>(e.g. during a performance) as much as they want without
>voicing/regulating?  Is there a way a technician can optimize a piano to
>do this?

As a mechanical engineer by trade (piano student by avocation) I've been
interested
in the belief you express above.  It is widely believed, but can be logically
disproved (unless someone on the list finds a flaw in my argument!).  The
pianist
determines the velocity of the hammer by how he presses the key.  He could
arrive
at the same velocity by pressing the key in a variety of ways i.e. hard for
a short distance, medium throughout the active range, hard at the end of the
stroke, etc.
However, when the hammer has that velocity and is no longer in contact with the
forcing function, elementary physics says it will react the same way from
that point
forward no matter how it was accelerated to that velocity.  The piano action
is no longer in contact with the hammer, and at that point is is affected
only by friction and air resistance which the pianist does not control.
Therefore, the tone would be identical for all the techniques above that
resulted in the same hammer velocity.
In other words, on a particular piano, for a particular volume, tone will be
the same
regardless of the technique used to arrive at that volume.

I think that much of "tone" that is attributed to pianists is actually
articulation,
and probably most greatly noticed is volume weighting within chords or
harmony which
greatly impacts perceived "tone".

                                   Regards,  Mike