Hi Jonathan, > Any ideas on a way to measure the difference scientifically? Very simple. If you want to measure the movement of the key (e.g. to determine vibrations potentially transmitted to the finger), just attach an accelerometer to a test key. Probably imbed it in the key next to a key weight, making sure to remove some of the lead to keep the key weighting constant. It would be important that a real finger be used to play the note. Key response could be measured every time the key is struck during the performance of a piece. Voltage from the accelerometer could be used to trigger an oscilloscope, particularly a digital storage scope. The key vibrations would very much depend on the characteristics of the pianist's fingers and technique. The pianist could be asked to comment on the sound and action, and the specific comments could be correlated with the movement (and vibrational) patterns of the key. Since every hand and every pianist is different, the action may not respond the same way to all pianists. Of course this would be an exploratory study, so it would be up to the investigators to "play it by ear" when determining which specific questions to ask with regard to the relationship between key movement and the "experience" of the pianist. By the way, this would make a great science fair project for some RPT's kid! Science fair is lots of fun. I judged for a district meet today, and I saw some pretty nice projects. Relating key movement to the pianist's experience would be a very competitive project, I think. For all it's worth, a bright action "feels" lighter to me, too. However, I attribute that to the fact that much more sound (albeit harsh) seems to come from the piano when the hammers are hard/flat. Perhaps it's just that the sound spectrum has greater higher-frequency representation, where we are more sensitive. Anyway, it doesn't require as much finger-breaking force to get the piano to scream in the ff sections. Of course the lower frequency response is lacking, making the sound and the experience rather empty. My only other thought is that an overly dark piano can have such muddy sound (devoid of higher frequency representation) that the acoustic feedback (as to precisely when a note has sounded) can become very imprecise. Higher frequencies, particularly scattered over a large bandwidth, provide FAR better onset cues. A visual analogy that "feels" very much the same to me would be changing your computer settings for blue text on a black background. Read something long, and see how long it takes before you're reaching for an aspirin. Why does this happen? The information is imprecise. The density of your blue cones is about 1/100 the density of your red and green cones. Blue cones are not meant for seeing detail. They're meant solely for discerning color. Peace, Sarah
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC