Hey there Quentin Its not just jazz players that get into string plucking and the likes. Some of the modern classical stuff writen requires all maner of strange device. And much of that isnt particularily easy going on the mechanics of the instrument.. You are right... many pianists dont seem to consider the negative effects some of this stuff has on the instrument. And much of it is perhaps not so very damaging... and besides, they will reason, thats what we (piano techs) are paid for. The circle goes ever round and round. Cheers RicB Hello Richard, As you know,some jazz players also pluck the strings sometimes (although we always tell them not to touch the strings without gloves....grrrrrr), and someday we had problems on one of our grands that we rent for concerts because the last guy who played the piano (Bill Carrothers) plucked the strings and he bent some dampers. We moved the piano from the place where the "plucking guy" performed to another concert hall, and we did not check that everything was in place before moving it tp the next place. So as I began to tune the piano for the concert,I remarked the problems and I had to put off the action, and spend a lot of time on damper regulation in bad conditions (very little light...). The dampers regulation was in really bad shape. The piano was a Kawai RX-2 so it has a regular damper lever configuration.. I fear that sometimes pianists are not really aware of what they do on the piano and on the damage they can make on such fragile action parts. Quentin
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