Avery & Pat, et al, For a time after the publication of Ed McMorrow's fine work "The Educated Piano", there was a great flurry of activity around folks changing strike lines in a somewhat more aribitrary that educated way. In that work, Ed took the (very) defensible position that the distance from the vbar to the strike point _should_ be set. (No, I don't memorize that number either - let's assume that it is nominally between 1/7th and 1/9th of the speaking length). The problem, _I_ think came when a arbitrary number came to be set for this length. In a piano manufactured so perfectly as to "mirror" the designer's intent, perhaps that approach might work. In the real world of piano making, things are not so reductively accurate; and one must rely on one's experience. Thus, for some time, a good many otherwise competent, well-intentioned technicians would remove the hammers in the 5th and 6th octave of a good many S&S pianos, reglue them somewhat closer to the vbar, and regulate accordingly. The more professional of these folk took the time to make a nicely balanced curve. In addition to being more aesthetically pleasing, it was also more easy to maintain good shape. Other folks simply moved the hammers which they felt to be offensive, and left the hammer line looking like a poorly laid out picket fence. A more productive approach, I think would be to determine the appropriate ratio, see how close the instrument is to begin with, figure out which direction the hammers must be moved in each section (and in what degree they need to be moved) and then remove the hammers and make a nice, new hammer line. Ed says all this a good deal better than I do. His book is highly recommended. Ah, well - another small corner of the piano iceberg. Horace >Avery: I maintain a D for a local organization that has the same >displaced hammer line. I queried Mike Mohr at Steinway about this and >he said, to the best of my recollection, that some times a rebuilder >finds it necessary to put the hammers in this postion to get the best >tone out of that section. Since there was no tonal improvement by >moving the action in and out, I decided to leave well enough alone. I >think your time would be spent more productively in voicing the hammers. >Patrick Poulson, RPT Horace Greeley hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu LiNCS voice: 415/725-4627 Stanford University fax: 415/725-9942
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