[CAUT] Shank Pitch

[Richard Brekne]

    I'm not being contrary but when you walk up to a piano and play it
    can you tell a difference if the person who hung the hammers didn't
    tune the shanks?

    Sincere question.

    dp


I myself am not apt at this... but I have seen it done with 100 % 
accuracy.  One of my teachers at Steinway Hamburg simply ran up and down 
the higher treble and marked of all shanks he meant were too off to be 
acceptable.  He then (for demonstration purposes) used a block of wood 
with a nice loud resonance of it own as a sounding block against the 
hammers.  That is to say, he pulled the action cavity out, raise the 
sounding block in position over the hammers and firmly smacked the keys 
banging the hammers against the block.  Shore'nuf... you could hear 
really clearly what he was talking about.

He went on to say that you could get all anal bout it and really sort / 
match shanks with hammers for a given response resonance... but not 
every one agreed as to how far in this direction it was useful to go. 
IMHO there is a pretty hefty chunk of the subjective present in deciding 
ones own answer to that question. That one could learn to objectively 
hear the difference if one put oneself to the task... I have little 
doubt.  Look what we <<learn>> to hear as a part of learning to tune !  
Pretty amazing stuff when it comes right down to it.

Cheers
RicB