Voicing

[David Love]

I've sort of exhausted my thoughts on this subject but as I said earlier,
prevoicing means before the hammers are installed, much less delivered.  I
wouldn't need to "sell" voicing because it's already in the price.
Generally the customer doesn't sit down to try the piano until I'm done.
When the action goes in it needs regulation, alignment, hammer to string
fitting, tuning and voicing.  I'm usually there for several hours.  If you
want me to say explicitely that leaving the piano unvoiced is incorrect,
well I won't say that, but I will say that leaving the piano unvoiced is
incomplete.  What if when you put in the action the let-off was at 1/4" and
the customer played the piano and liked it and said don't touch it?  Would
you see that as an opportunity to leave it that way?  Or would you explain
that the piano will perform better if you take the time to set it right.  I
don't view basic voicing any differently.  The bean dip analogy is fun but
you're looking at the wrong part of it.  To make bean dip, you've gotta have
beans.  In voicing, you have to have a certain foundation for the hammer.
Let me reiterate, that doesn't mean that I'm imposing bright or mellow,
spicy or not spicy on the customer.  They can well decide that part of it
but I will still voice for a certain consistency in the supporting structure
of the hammer, balance and evenness.  If they say they like it as it is,
they are almost always responding to the level of attack.  I will explain
the process and the goal and reassure them that their tastes will be adhered
to but that certain procedures need to be performed to ensure range,
uniformity and balance of tone.  It's easy to let the customers enthusiasm
for the improvement of a new hammer lull you into a false sense of
completion.  I would personally try and avoid that.  Then again, an
improperly voiced hammer is probably worse than an unvoiced hammer.

Voicing is part of the preparation of a piano.  It is, in my opinion, the
most difficult and artistic part of what we do.  There are guidelines for
procedures but because each manufacturer's hammers are different and because
each set of hammers varies a little bit, experience and a strong tonal
concept have to guide you, a few pianistic skills don't hurt either.  My
sense is that many techs are uncomfortable with voicing and look for ways to
avoid doing it.  I think all of us would love to have a hammer that you
could just put on out of the box and they would be right.  I don't think
that is possible because of the differences between the structure of the
hammer off the press and the structural needs of the hammer to produce all
the elements of good tone.  Some manipulation is always required.
Complicating the issue are the inherent inconsistencies within each sheet of
felt.  Some hammers sound better than others out of the box but in my
experience that period is usually short lived.

My goal is always to please the customer.  Part of the problem is
understanding just what the customer is communicating about their
preferences.  So if after I've discussed with a customer the merits of
creating resilience on sustain, tonal range, etc., and if after I've
explained that the piano needs to be balanced from top to bottom, and if
after I've explained that the piano needs to produce similar quality tone
from note to note at all levels of playing, and if after I've explained that
they can still have it bright or mellow as they wish, they still want me to
leave it alone, I would leave it alone.  So far, that has never happened.

David Love



----- Original Message -----
From: <Kdivad@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: August 14, 2002 8:07 AM
Subject: Re: Voicing



David you just mentioned something that greatly affects this thread.  You
said, "The analogy about the engine had to do with being thorough in a
task", if I remember correctly the tech installed a new set of hammers and
then installed the action at the customers house.  He had no chance to
prevoice before the customer sat down, played and decided it was just what s
he wanted.  He stated he would have prefered to voice.  Many of the
responses implied he should have sold her a voicing, and that leaving the
piano unvoiced was incorrect.


David Koelzer
Vintage Pianos
DFW