Dead spot

[Newton Hunt]

I said:
> The best test is to strike A5, hard, and time it's sustain.  anything
> less than 12 seconds is a bead board, anything over 15 seconds is a very
> lively board.

Terry asked:
> This may be such a basic question, but I have not heard it answered before.
> Regarding timing sustain, are we doing this in a very quiet room and timing
> until no trace of sound is heard - it seems to me the cut-off time might
> tend to be a bit arbitrary. What general guidelines do you follow?

Yes, it is arbitrary.  I evolved it from noticing that dead or dying
boards lose sustain most obviously in that region, A5.  I have listened
to hundreds of pianos and have acquired a evaluative sense in terms of
what I want to hear from a decent piano.

This is not to say that other areas are not better or worse but I can
play one note and know something of the piano.  For full evaluation I
need to tune the piano.

There are no hard and fast rules, except for those that you create for
yourself.  You may well find other means for quickly determining the
condition of a board, and it may well be as valid as mine, or perhaps
better.  Real dead tone is rather obvious, the in-between is what we
want to know about.

		Newton