[CAUT] damper return noise/una corda

[Avery]

And you really think that's going to happen?! LOL

On May 6, 2010, at 12:33 PM, Zeno Wood <zeno.wood at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Fred,
>
> I remember hearing Ed McMorrow's take on this.  When the hammer  
> strikes the two strings, the third string is out of phase, which  
> causes noise on a slow damper release.  However, his solution was to  
> tell the pianist not to do it.  FWIW.  YMMV.  Etc.
>
> Regards,
> Zeno Wood
>
>
> On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu> wrote:
>        There has been discussion in the past on this list of the  
> problem of damper return noise when playing with una corda. This  
> problem has really been bugging me more and more. The issue is that  
> the dampers work fine with next to no return noise except when the  
> una corda pedal is used. But when the u c is used, there is  
> considerable, often very audible return noise, and it happens when  
> someone is trying to play very softly so is doubly annoying,  
> essentially in areas where there are trichord damper felts. I have  
> tried lots of things, the most promising of which is to tilt the  
> dampers very subtly so that flats hit the strings slightly ahead of  
> trichords, and this helps but doesn't eliminate the problem.  
> Different damper felt doesn't seem to help, though I can't say I  
> have tried everything (haven't tried Yamaha or Kawai, for instance).
>        I am at a loss what to do to avoid this other than to change  
> hammer alignment and shift parameters so that all strings are always  
> struck by all hammers. I am beginning to suspect this may be a major  
> reason why the Steinway basement guys decided to make that change to  
> their standard procedure. While I like to have the two string tonal  
> palette available, the tradeoff of that return noise seems to wipe  
> out the advantage.
>        Does anyone else have thoughts on how to resolve this issue?
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> fssturm at unm.edu
> http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm
>
>
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