Friends ... Jim and Joe, and Ed too especially on this one. Ok... a couple days go by, and I get a chance to review your replies and take them to the nearest grand and think about things.... and I am definatly scratching my head more now then before. I know I know...so what else is new ? But hear.... I am bedaffled if you cant somehow feel the hardness of the hammer somehow in the stroke.... tho after clarifying my origional question about the actual moment of impact I see now that that is problematic at best... still how can one feel the hammer hardness at all unless somehow or another the impact is also felt. So I am left wondering about a couple things... The hammer hits the string and of course both the string and the hammer / hammershank are effected by the hardness of that collision. The string does what it does and we all hear that no problem... and no doubt the shanks vibrations are similiarily affected tho the vibration is not directly coupled for that millisecond or so to the rest of the key. But is that decoupled state long enough to prevent the vibrations going on in the shank to be transmitted down the system to the key front ? The shank will obviously not just vibrate one cycle and stop... but the energy will dissipate quickly...but how quickly ?... Secondly how much of the vibration energy traveling down the shank can get back into the key itself in other routes ? There is a more or less direct coupling through the jack tail... tho this obviously cant account for much if any leaking through... then there is the whole key frame and bed...but then you should be able to feel (or measure) the same result from touching nearly anywhere The third thought is of course that the whole thing is some kind of weird illusion... but I have real difficulty accepting this... it just feels to real. Lastly I wonder (and here I am in this space again) then just how much has actually been thoroughly checked out and can be said to be "known". Has anyone actually proven one way or another that pianists / technicians are actually capable of feeling in anysense the hardness of hammers ? Looks like I got yet another item of my increasing list of things I want to find out for sure Perhaps this subject has already died out...but I would welcome any further thoughts on the matter. Still pondering...:) RicB Richard Brekne RPT NPTF Griegakadamiet UiB
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