"Loss of Tone" Complaint

[Tom Cole]

Terry,

If this loss of tone happened suddenly, I would want to investigate what
Joe Goss mentioned, that maybe the strings are no longer being contacted
by the grooved part of the hammers. Somebody might have stepped on the
shift pedal and then a coin or something fell down between the key frame
and that cloth-covered block thingee. IOW, the action shifted and
couldn't shift back. If the hammers haven't been filed in a long time,
the tone change on shift can be pretty dramatic.

Tom Cole

Farrell wrote:
> 
> I tuned a 1928 Conover 5' 8" grand yesterday. I have now tuned it three
> times. They tune once a year. When making the appt., the lady asked me to
> clean the piano interior because they had made dust while installing tile on
> the floor AND because she noticed a loss of piano tone. Actually, she told
> me about the loss of tone thing while on the car phone, so I did not want to
> have a long conversation - otherwise I may have pointed out that a little
> dust just ain't gonna kill a piano.
> 
> Cleaned and tuned piano. The piano appears to suffer from a "loss of tone"
> (after getting dust out - so we know that was not it!!)! This piano appears
> to be all original with original hammers. It is in just about as good
> condition as any 73 year old all original piano will ever be. It functions
> amazingly well (it's overall condition is about average for a 40 - 50 year
> old piano). The tone is REAL MELLOW. It's like someone put marshmallows
> (fresh) on in place of the hammers. The scale is four sections. The top two
> are very quiet and super mellow, the bottom two are louder, but not loud,
> and mellow, but not as muffled as the top two.
> 
> The soundboard is flat or has just a bit of crown. Downbearing seems real
> good (only had my rocker gauge with me yesterday - it did not seem
> excessive, although there was plenty).
> 
> Even in the top two sections, there are a couple-few notes that are a lot
> louder and crisper. It's almost like all the hammers went soft, but a couple
> had nail polish spilled on them.
> 
> Anyway, my overall question is why is this piano like this (I realize that
> is a very nebulous question), and assuming the hammers are the primary cause
> (I plucked and it seems as though the hammers are the culprit - kinda hard
> to tell though because I cannot pluck as hard as a hammer can hit!) - what
> happens to an old hammer to make it soft?
> 
> I am used to old hammers getting really hard - but an old one getting soft?
> When you use the una-corda everything gets super-duper-incredibly mellow.
> Would chemical treatment likely be of value here? I have never hardened a
> hammer - always steaming or needling.
> 
> And now a more global question. What happens to quality hammers as they age?
> They start out at some level of hardness, but also they will have a good
> deal of tension across the strike point. I suppose this tension is
> responsible for something like "a full development of a pleasing bouquet of
> partials"? Even if you harden, or soften, or whatever to your liking a 50 or
> 70 year-old hammer, I can only assume that you will never get it back to how
> it sounded when new (maybe a half-bouquet at best?). It's gotta loose
> ALL/most the tension or whatever after a couple/few decades. So, would it
> not be the case that in almost any situation, even if a piano owner
> generally likes the tone of a piano (hammers look pretty good, but they are
> 50 years old), that it will likely sound better with new hammers (I realize,
> not that most people would notice)? What can anyone tell me about how a
> hammer ages?
> 
> Thanks big time.
> 
> Terry Farrell