Hi Sarah, Well thought out (as always). You may want to search the archives for "moment of inertia" as there was a quite *violent* discussion here some years ago about this. A heavier hammer is capable of "storing" more energy (i.e. greater moment of inertia). The manner in which this energy is transferred to the string is what we hope to influence by "voicing". If #88 and #1 had the same moment of inertia, then the difference in sound would be limited to the transfer rate to the string between the two hammers. I do remember going to a voicing class where an assortment of different hammers were placed within one octave of a piano. They were then played mezzo forte--and there were no "heard" differences. I prefer to take a very structured approach to piano maintenance, after all if the hammer flange screw is loose what would be the point of needling the hammer? There is a wonderful diagram in the Journal called the "Kenzoid". Have a look if you have the cdrom's. At 12:23 PM 02/10/2004 -0400, you wrote: > Without this storage, >there would be no sustain, and the piano would sound more like a weird >sort of drum. Peace, Sarah Regards, Don Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.P.T. mailto:pianotuna@accesscomm.ca http://us.geocities.com/drpt1948/ 3004 Grant Rd. REGINA, SK S4S 5G7 306-352-3620 or 1-888-29t-uner
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