Dear list, I have a customer who is a serious, accomplished and punishing player-- plays hours a day and loves to play HARD. One of his pianos is a Yamaha G-1 that constantly breaks wound strings in the upper bass section (not during tuning, but when being played). They always break at the agraffe. It's usually the right (facing keyboard) string but sometimes the left. (He also likes to play while holding the shift on-- softly sometimes, but more often hard) (he likes the sound). I've had Schaff make up some of their "low tension" strings (thicker core wire, thinner copper). This didn't help. The piano's in good regulation and has a set of Brooks Abel hammers that I put on. They're not terribly hard. Here's my problem: this gentleman thinks there must be something wrong with the piano, whereas I have explained to him that such breakage is common enough when there is loud playing and heavy use; that the wires will suffer cumulative fatigue at their terminations (especially the end towards the hammer strike point) and that's why they break. And that it's REALLY asking for trouble to play HARD when the shift is engaged!! He also occasionally breaks high treble wires on this instrument, and breaks many, many treble wires-- in the top sections only (never bass or agraffe treble) on his other piano, which is a Steinway D. This fellow (who is around 60 but lean and muscular) claims that he never experienced such a problem with other pianos, and that it was "never a problem" at Juilliard, where he studied piano performance. I'm just looking for some confirmation that I'm right about this. Might anyone out there be willing to comment? Anyone out there have any corroboration? Anyone out there work at Juilliard and replace lots of busted wires in practice rooms under cover of night?? I have another little question: Do piano pedagogues ever teach anything about being aware when you use the shift pedal, that if any dampers are being held aloft (by the keys) when one shifts, this could put an unwelcome strain on the underlever pinning? I know: key end felts should be very firm and dense (hence smooth, undented) and the underlevers should slide sideways on them without much lateral stress. I'm just asking. In all my years in the trade I don't recall anyone ever discussing this. Joseph Giandalone, RPT Conway, MA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101109/95d63168/attachment.htm>
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