Aftertouch Question

[Delwin D Fandrich]

Jon,

You raise an interesting point. There is no technical reason why the key lever ratio could
not be the same on both the naturals and on the sharps. However, it is probably easier for
the key manufacturer to us a common offset while drilling the balance holes for the
sharps. And if the piano manufacturer doesn't notice, doesn't care, doesn't complain and
accepts them, well, why not?

I can't say that key dip on the actions I used to test pianists reaction to relative key
travel, etc., were identical between the naturals and the sharps. I was working with
Steinway B's and D's. Mostly D's. My practice was to set up the action and configure the
naturals for height and travel. This included establishing an acceptable amount of
aftertouch on the naturals. The sharps were set for height relative to the naturals and
given an amount of travel that yielded the same average amount of aftertouch. Once that
amount of key travel was established, it was followed precisely throughout the set.

So the actual amount of sharp key travel (dip) might well have been slightly different
from that of the naturals. If so, it wasn't noticed by the pianists I worked with. Nor
were the variations in aftertouch noticed. It was still the slight variations in key
travel between keys of the same type -- that is, from one natural to the next and/or from
one sharp to the next -- that was noticed.

So, what say you all?

Del

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Jon Page wrote:

> Not necessarily so. KR is suprisingly irregular which supports
> my post the other day of "hap-hazzard".
>
> Rather than a determined ratio, it is 'come what may'.
>
> One would think that after all these years, precision
> would be the standard.
>
> I have only encountered 2 pianos with even KR from the
> factory, a 9' Baldwin and a Kawai 5'8 (or so). And these
> had the sharp's KR one point higher; .52/.53 & .54/.55
> respectively.
>
> Usually I find a point spread of .03 to .05 across the keyboard.
> One can only surmise that the balance rail pins are not placed
> with the accuracy we would expect, hence the discrepencies
> in touch from piano to piano. Of course that is just one factor,
> but an improtant one.
>
> Jon Page
> Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass. (jpage@capecod.net)