[CAUT] Warning to you hosting the Van Cliburn gold medalist

[Ed Sutton]

Susan-

Yes! I use this technique, too, when the artist asks for "just a little more" on a few notes, or to "bring up this section just a little bit." (I use a fat mute held on the string to take the impact.)

Over the years I have developed my kit of quick voicing touch-up techniques, and it is very, very useful in pleasing pianists.

It is amazing how congenial a nervous performer becomes when you listen and try to give what they ask for.

When we voice the piano, we are worried about creating a perfect continuity of sound. I've come to understand that the artist hears the piano in terms of the program to be played. It may be that the F#5 that sounds just right to the technician is a special, focused and exposed note that serves as an expressive peak in the program, so if the artist asks for more on that note, or una corda voicing on that note, I do my best to give it a little more, even if it sounds a bit uneven to me.

I grant that I am an amateur compared to many on this list, but for the few artists I serve, this approach seems to work.

Ed S.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Susan Kline 
  To: Ed Sutton ; caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 11:15 AM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] Warning to you hosting the Van Cliburn gold medalist




    How about a quick pass with a hammer iron? 
    There are often floor outlets on stage.
    es

  I use a trick Ted Sambell showed me once. You press on the string 
  with one hand while playing the note hard and fast with the other. 
  It's quite noticeably brighter in seconds, usually, though the effect 
  seems to fade in time. An artist seeing one do this usually remarks 
  with amazement at the difference. How much difference it really 
  makes later in the concert I'm not sure, but at least they know I 
  really did address their concerns, AND in just a minute or two. 
  It can be quite helpful to even up minor voicing differences in 
  a section by brightening the dull notes instead of needling the 
  bright ones (which pianists seem to hate.) 

  I think part of the benefit of this technique is that since one is 
  sitting down to do it, the artist is standing up; hence hears a much 
  brighter sound already than he or she gets when seated at the instrument, 
  especially if the music desk is on when he or she is playing.

  Susan Kline 

  P.S. I once got chosen as the regular tuner for a little festival 
  after the guy who came from the Bay Area with the SF rental D managed to 
  burn the church carpet with his hammer iron .... <grin> I've tuned for 
  them for about 14 years now.

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