Many want a piano that can deliver soft mellow passages, yet they have the strength to bring on the brilliance when needed. Others just don't have that kind of strength (some people are stronger, faster etc. than others. Check out those disparities on the Olympics.) I know one pianist who wants the piano fairly bright because she "would rather work hard at pianissimo than wear herself out getting fortissimo." Whatever the pianist wants. Now, when they don't own the piano they are going to play, that makes it more difficult. dp David M. Porritt, RPT dporritt at smu.edu -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Richard Brekne Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 4:03 PM To: caut at ptg.org; Pianotech List Subject: Just how much brilliance can a pianist make ? Hi folks. Ran into an interesting tidbit the other day which prompted me to put the following to you all. I service a relatively young D here in town and there are a few different local pianists who are regulars on it. After summer I was asked by the youngest of these, a 17 year old prodigy, to calm it down a bit. His concern was that he could not get a satisfactory pianissimo. One of his main influences is a prominent pedagogue in the Russian tradition for the record. I mentioned that a few of the other pianists... one in particular wanted the thing pretty much as it was... brighter really as they felt they could not get enough brilliance out of the instrument. He kind of snorted and said something along the lines of "thats because she can not make her own brilliance". Ok... the kids got a heavy hand I'll give him that..... BUT... given the physical limitations of the piano I have to wonder something about just how much "brilliance" is in the grasp of players... and in particular if his hands, heavy tho they may be, should indeed be able to out power just about any other accomplished player. The action will allow only so much hammer velocity yes ? Is not top velocity and for that matter momentum within the reach of just about any very good player ? Just how strong do you have to be ? This is a question I've never really asked myself and if there is a real significant window of variance here... then I suppose it needs to be put into my voicing awareness box for further consideration. Thanks for any / all input. Cheers RicB
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