[CAUT] Fwd: Steinway sound-Hammer weights

[Ed Sutton]

FWIW, there is also the question of resilience or hysteresis, i.e. is the 
felt springy enough to to push the hammer away from the string at high 
dynamics. If this changes with the force of impact, it may change the 
contact time of the hammer to the string, damping more of the partials on a 
soft blow and fewer partials on a harder blow. In a responsive piano, the 
change of timbre is especially noticable in the mid-range, and good pianists 
use this to wonderful effect.
Presumably this is the value of the recent "medium pressed" and "natural" 
hammers. Reading from the inside out, they get softer, but reading from the 
outside in, they get springy-er, not just harder, so they push back  against 
the greater compression.

Ed S.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Sturm" <fssturm at unm.edu>
To: <keithspiano at gmail.com>; <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 11:55 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Fwd: Steinway sound-Hammer weights


> On Mar 2, 2011, at 9:20 PM, Keith Roberts wrote:
>
>> So increasing the action ration and using a lighter hammer can  deliver 
>> waaay more force to the strings.
>
>
> Obviously within some limits.
> But something just as important as how much force is delivered to the 
> string is what happens to the hammer felt during the impact. The felt 
> itself is like a spring, and becomes harder on impact. The more  velocity 
> in the impact, the more the felt compacts, becomes hard.  Harder felt 
> means more higher partials.  So the wider the range of  velocities you can 
> achieve, the more variety of felt hardnesses you  can achieve. In 
> practical terms, a higher ratio action with lighter,  softer hammers can 
> achieve a greater range of tone color.
> Power is important per se, but I'd say tone color is more important. 
> Piano tone is special because it changes timbre from soft to loud. The 
> addition of more upper partials to the mix as it gets louder is what 
> gives piano music its character. What we hear as "louder" is not so  much 
> more sound pressure (decibels) as a change in tone color, or  rather the 
> two things put together. If all that happens is increased  decibel level, 
> it takes a whole lot more change to be noticeable, and  the sound produced 
> by one hammer can't be very easily distinguished  from other sounds 
> produced at the same time by other hammers.
> That is where the smoke and mirrors of the pianist comes from.
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> University of New Mexico
> fssturm at unm.edu
>
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