[CAUT] tone color

[Fred Sturm]

On Feb 23, 2011, at 1:53 PM, rwest1 at unl.edu wrote:

> Can anyone define "color" in piano tone?  I've always been a bit  
> baffled by the term because I'm not a good enough player to  
> appreciate differences in "color."  Is there any way of describing  
> it in voicing terms that a piano technician is familiar with and  
> could use to guide his work?

For music in general it is essentially the proportional strengths of  
the partials within the tone. For instance, a clarinet sounds as it  
does because even numbered partials are suppressed. For the piano, the  
mix of relative strengths is largely influenced by the hammer/string  
interaction (in the 1 - 3 millisecond range), where the prolonged  
contact of the hammer with the string on a softer blow, or when the  
felt is "softer" will damp a percentage of upper partials and favor  
the lower ones. SImilarly, a hard blow or harder surface will  
accentuate the higher partials, as the hammer will get away from the  
string faster and won't damp them as much. There are other components,  
particularly attack sounds, and they are also very important. And  
various other factors come into play, including the scale (how the  
note played will resound/create sympathetic partials in the other  
strings, for instance), how resonant the board is and what pitches and  
pitch ranges it may accentuate or damp, etc.
	In terms of the technician's work, classic needling technique on  
"hard-pressed" hammers attempts to create a tension/compression  
profile in the hammer that will lead to the result that harder and  
harder blows will create more and more higher partials, the voicing  
gradient will always rise as the blow becomes harder. An unvoiced  
hammer will often (always?) produce a much more limited range of color.

>
> In cases where I've heard comments that a particular piano doesn't  
> have color, it usually means the action is too light and the tone  
> much to bright.  Is this what others have experienced?  Darker  
> pianos seem to have lots of color, as long as they aren't too dull/ 
> dead sounding.

I'm not sure that particular use of the word is helpful. Better to ask  
what color the piano is. The light, bright piano may have a shrill,  
thin color. The darker piano may have a full, deep color. And from  
that initial judgment, you might be able to think of things to do to  
change it. But I think it is more important that any piano have a  
range of color, from the perspective of a technician. That range of  
color should be centered on the part of the spectrum the customer  
prefers.
>
> Richard West

Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
"Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them." Coco  
Chanel