[CAUT] damper return noise/una corda

[Joe Goss]

Sort of like the Bosendorfer effect?
Joe Goss BSMusEd MMusEd RPT
imatunr at srvinet.com
www.mothergoosetools.com
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Zeno Wood 
  To: caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2010 11:33 AM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] damper return noise/una corda


  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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