Feeling the Hammers/Richard Brekne

Richard Brekne Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
Wed, 17 Jul 2002 00:44:11 +0200


Hey there Dave;

I tried a couple more things this evening on a grand action
I have at home. I got my son and wife to help me out. I took
a note (F4 I think) and just swung the hammer up so that it
was standing straight up. No possible connection between the
jack and knuckle there :) . Then I got my wife and son each
to press down on that key while I tapped the hammer on the
shoulder felt with a little wooden drum hammer we have and
asked them to describe what if anything they felt. I had a
vacum cleaner going full blast and the stereo on so it was
really hard to hear anything but that, and I had them
looking away. Both wife and son could easily tell me when I
tapped the hammer and when I didnt. Both had a much more
difficult time of it when I pushed down the repetition
lever. And both described what they felt as a (and get this
Andre') "tingling" sensation. Neither had any coaching from
me, and they both did this little experiment totally
independant of one another, not talking about it at all with
each other. 

I also had my son hold a peice of wood up in the way of the
hammer travel so that it would hit that at about 45 degrees
past where it would normally hit the strings... to see if I
could be sure of seperating the feel of the hammer hiting
the wood and checking. Quite a delay between the two this
way... and I have no doubt about it.... You feel the hammer
hitting regardless of the fact the jack is not in contact
with the knuckle.

Still... a nice peice of real science with some decent
measuring equipment would be the thing to really show whats
what.

RicB


Kdivad@AOL.COM wrote:
> 
> Ric, I also believe you can feel the hammer hit the string though perhaps the impact being transfered indirectly down the shank into the hammer rail with balancier spring tension connecting the balancier to the hammer rail and the capstan. Also perhaps very minimally through the hammer rail to brackets to keyframe to key.
> 
> More experiments?
> 
> David Koelzer
> Vintage Pianos
> 214-549-3872
> DFW


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