At 11:19 PM +0200 6/28/02, Richard Brekne wrote:
>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.
'Tis far better to be bedaffled than horn-swoggled. I really don't
think that, given the short burst of the string's vibration which the
hammer can relay to us, that they are sensing the actual hammer
string pressure-of-contact directly. I think that the moment of
contact is being inferred from the behavior of hammer speeding away
from the string. The force with which it hits the backcheck is an
indication of the character of the impact. A harder "chunk", hitting
the backcheck, would say that the hammer was being turned around by
the hammer at the maximum displacement which possible at this
velocity of impact.
The hammer and string are both elastic bodies and undergo an elastic
reaction on impact. Imagine the these two as springs, opposing ones.
If these coupling springs are well-matched for impedance, the hammer
will push the string as far out as that hammer could, and that
string, with its elastic return, would send the hammer of with the
maximum force it could.
A weaker feeling at check might tell you that the hammer might have
been so soft that the string was unable to absorb ay force, or that
the hammer was so hard that it slammed into the string and just
stalled there, lacking the resilience with which to rebound.
>So I am left wondering about a couple things...
>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
>?...
I don't think the energy is that great. At any rate, I'd guess that
what arrives at the finger tip is a general sample of all of the
piano's energy, its excitation, as present at the key. What the
felt/steel collision told the hammer shank about itself, and what of
that was going to making it through the shank's vibration, and be
picked up by the finger at the front end, will find itself dropped
into a sea of noise as the board's hum is filtered by the maple rim
and spruce keybed. As you refer to in the next bullet point.
>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
Theoretically, there should be a consistency, a homogeneity of
vibration throughout the system, but I sure we'd find local filters
and and anti-nodes.
>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 ?
Sounds a little like "GW" asking about the actual science behind
global warming.
>Perhaps this subject has already died out...but I would welcome any further
>thoughts on the matter.
I like your third idea, that people are channeling the experience of
the pivotal moment.
Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.
".......true more in general than specifically"
...........Lenny Bruce, spoofing a radio discussion of the Hebrew
roots of Calypso music
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