[CAUT] Shank Pitch

[Jim Busby]

Ric,

Good info. Do you think, though, that it could have been other factors too? I mean, Chris Robinson did some studies that showed a marked difference in tone by the differences in pinning. (I think DS did this too?) Did your teacher actually take shanks off, tap them, etc. and prove this to your satisfaction, or was it just his theory? (Probably very well-educated theory, but if it ain't shown to me I'm kind of skeptical)

Regards,
Jim Busby

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Richard Brekne
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 1:10 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] Shank Pitch

    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