[CAUT] tone color

[Douglas Wood]

Thanks, Fred. Very enlightening. I'd like to comment that clarity/ 
focus, at least as I experience it, is VERY sensitive to hammer shape.  
Narrower contact area is better, but limited by the structure of the  
hammer. (Too pointed a top leaves "cut layers" to fall apart rather  
quickly during playing. Too broad gets muddy rather quickly.) And I  
agree totally that the travel/burn-in/fitting makes a huge difference.  
I've had more than a few occasions where a basically good piano that  
is basically well-prepared has been quite unsatisfactory because final  
fitting ("open strings") was so erratic.

We really can get the "big bucks" for being compulsive in some areas. !

Doug

On Feb 24, 2011, at 7:36 PM, Fred Sturm wrote:

> On Feb 24, 2011, at 4:16 PM, Douglas Wood wrote:
>
>> It's really easy to bring out a melody in the tenor, even if it's  
>> pretty soft. Right, Fred?
>
>
> Not necessarily, depending on the voicing gradient and style. There  
> are times I find it difficult to make a tenor to bass melody or  
> accent sound clean enough to project through what is going on above.  
> When it is a matter of a clear cut tenor melody against an  
> accompaniment, that is usually not a problem, but it is the in  
> between stuff where something needs to be just a bit foreground, or  
> "stand out in the crowd enough to be heard distinctly." It isn't  
> necessarily that the hammers are voiced "too soft" but rather  
> possibly "too muddy," if that means anything to you.
> 	In practical terms, with a hard pressed hammer it means that the  
> crown voicing needs to be quite shallow, that the "tear-drop point"  
> under it is distinct, that the deep needling up to the top,  
> especially right up toward the top, is controlled and not too deep  
> (the converse of these things leading toward "mud"). For lacquer, it  
> is sort of analogous, with the idea that the attack zing of the  
> lacquer is reduced but not entirely eliminated, that perhaps the  
> single needle goes in mostly at an angle away from the tip of the  
> molding and the sugar coating is controlled, not chaotic.
> 	Clarity/focus is what I value the most, bottom to top. I can live  
> with a lot of warts if I have clarity. There needs to be some "ring"  
> available with a bit more effort, everywhere, even the tenor and  
> bass (yes, you tone it down to balance, but don't go too far and  
> eliminate it).  And I don't think you can overstate the contribution  
> of refined travel/square/mate (all three together) in getting that  
> kind of consistent focus at a full range of dynamic levels (I think  
> it has to do with the hammer string contact period, making it happen  
> consistently rather than chaotically, as it will with wobbly hammer  
> and out of phase strings, producing unpredictable tone color, not a  
> smooth curve corresponding to force).
> 	But I am a little on the eccentric side of things - I play  
> repertory that relies heavily on the coloristic character of the  
> piano, probably more than the standard classical/romantic stuff.  
> What I do is more revealing and less forgiving. More fun, too <G>.
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> fssturm at unm.edu
> "Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them."  
> Coco Chanel
>