[CAUT] Hammers are felt springs--was Steinway....

[Paul T Williams]

Hi Dale,

I think I refer to them as Wally's since he developed them with Abel.  No 
Steinway's work at Steinway anymore. Should we start calling the Webbs? 
(just kidding, of course). Let's give Wally the kudos of getting these on 
the market.  I think Mel is a great lady and is running the Brooks Co 
wonderfully.  She's great!!....and I Love the Naturals!  Perhaps we'll 
just start calling them "Naturals"?? I think Wally needs a bit of 
recognition though...

I think it might be a good idea for all of us to contact hammer producers 
to develop some sort of a soft (not too much so) hammer designed for just 
practice rooms and other small teacher studios, etc.  I'm wondering if 
there would be a market for this.  I spend a lot of time voicing down 
practice grands that are played 16 hours a day.  No matter what I put on 
them, they're harsh and painful in just a few months, but built well 
enough to handle quite a few years of abuse. Sure, these will be overly 
bright soon enough, but is there a technology to construct such a hammer? 
This coming from a "green" college tech who knows very little about hammer 
construction.

On the other hand, I don't want to start out with a "mushy" sound that 
will only get to a nice level in 6 months. These students who play these 
pianos have futures that are sitting there in our hands to make them work 
and sound properly, so I think there must be a "happy family" somewhere. 
We have to keep in mind why we're all here....for the students, mostly. 
The stage is a totally different issue.

Anything to lesson this massive care of practice pianos is all welcome to 
me.  Or, I'll just have to keep the needles in good supply. BTW, I do 
steam them as a "quick" fix...with a capachino steamer which the students 
find fascinating to watch!  I learned this from Roger Gable about 15 years 
ago. Nice quick fix.  If the hammers are rocks, however, it doesn't really 
work well and I don't run the steamer over them more than twice.

What say you fellow CAUT's?? I'm I out in left field....again :>(???  just 
trying to learn this crazy caut thing!!

Best,
Paul




From:
Dale Erwin <erwinspiano at aol.com>
To:
caut at ptg.org
Date:
03/06/2011 01:19 PM
Subject:
Re: [CAUT] Hammers are felt springs--was Steinway....




I notice the Abel Neutral hammers often referred to as "Wallys naturals". 
Now that he's not running the company anymore, why does this persist? 
Melanie, his very capable daughter is running it, so shouldn't the the 
hammers be called  Melanies Naturals.....naturally? :) 

   AS I read posts like this routinely I am kind of befuddled. So many 
hammer makers issue us hammers with a  hard knot of felt, which is ever 
present over the top of the molding. This feature characterizes firmer 
pressing of hammers all over the planet and they tend to be high in 
maintenance thereby consuming precious school budgets which 
are.....increasingly scarce. I realize there are many specific situations 
and reasons why we use a particular type of hammer, including me and I 
have sometimes chosen poorly.

  It is a fact that, the technical definition of a piano hammer is a 
non-linear felt spring (See five lecture on the acoustics of the piano.) 
Yet primarily many hammers more resemble the consistency of buffing 
wheels. Or cotton balls filled with lacquer. And we are expected to make 
them work and hold up? Really?
 
 In my opinion there only a few hammers made currently in the world that 
fit the true model of this description. 2 in this country, 2 in Canada and 
sometimes by happy accident....China. There may be others elsewhere but I 
am unaware of them. And there may be some well known brand of pianos where 
the pendulum is swinging back the other way but am unclear which ones at 
this moment.
  For 25 years I have observed with keen interest the hammer wear in 
institutional settings.  Routinely these ahmmers are infected with 
deafening earsplitting sounds in practice rooms, and breaking strings with 
in very short periods of time etc. In light of this I ask, should we 
really embrace the predominate styles of hammer for high use institutional 
settings, especially practice rooms?
  There is, without a doubt, in my mind ,that hammers acting as a felt 
spring have a much greater ability to maintain a musical tone & provide 
precious voicing stability with out massive amounts of needling or much 
anything else. 
 The resistance to this idea /reality is especially perplexing and have 
not heard many support it. Is it possible to over look the pianos in our 
care that are not being problems in high use situations? Do we ask, why 
are these hammers holding up and still sounding musical, and others not? 
hmmm. 
    Considering the problematic nature of hot/ hard pressed hammers in 
high use situations, does it not make sense to consider a different hammer 
choice and experience this for oneself? 
  Professionally speaking , I am tonally and musically driven and value 
both my hearing and the music as you all do.  I value the same for the 
students and teachers I serve and it is why I take the risk to state this 
premise clearly and passionately.
 The fact that I possess a bias is not for nothing and not because I am 
involved deeply with the Ronsen hammer brand. It is primarily for the 
reasons  outlined in this post....and..... I Love music
Regards
 

 Dale Erwin-Heritic at large 
www.Erwinspiano.com






-----Original Message-----
From: Paul T Williams <pwilliams4 at unlnotes.unl.edu>
To: caut at ptg.org
Sent: Thu, Mar 3, 2011 1:52 pm
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Fwd: Steinway sound-Hammer weights

Hi Dave, 

You're exactly right!  No matter what hammers are on those pianos, they 
get bright....and very quickly!  2 of 5 piano faculty have 2 B's each; one 
has 2 M's, one an L, and the other has her own personal Yam c-7.  It would 
be a nearly full time job to keep them in great tune, regulation, and 
voiced properly.  The yam is the yam and since it's hers, can do very 
little. The M's are nice and not played hard, the L is likewise not 
pounded on, but played regularly and has Abel Naturals on.  It's the 4 B's 
that need constant attention!  One prof is an extremely hard player with 
likewise hard playing students, so I'm fixing broken strings about every 6 
weeks. Mostly this happens in the capo, but the Sty with the Sty hammers 
has busted 4 bass strings in 2 years.  His pianos have a set of regular 
Sty hammers and the other has a set of Wallys Naturals. Both break strings 
about the same. The other prof has NY hammers on both, but not as hard a 
player. I rarely fix broken strings there. 

I try to watch the regulation closely as I can, but I fear if I back off 
the let off and drop, they'll complain that pp or ppp is impossible to 
control. 

They are bright!  I'll voice them down, but it only lasts a couple months. 
 I can see how that would tire the poor prof, but what can we do? 

Good input! 

On to fight another day.. 
Paul 



From: 
"David M. Porritt" <dmporritt at gmail.com> 
To: 
<caut at ptg.org> 
Date: 
03/03/2011 02:06 PM 
Subject: 
Re: [CAUT] Fwd:  Steinway sound-Hammer weights




When I was working at SMU the piano teachers with a full load of students
didn't want a loud and boisterous piano in their studio (all had 2 "B"s
except one teacher who had to "D"s).  As one piano teacher with 55 years 
of
experience there stated: "...you can't listen to 4 or 5 hours of a bright
piano.  The cochlea will fatigue and you will miss subtle things."  I 
think
he is absolutely correct.

dave

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of 
David
Love
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 10:49 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Fwd: Steinway sound-Hammer weights

I agree about the concert hall in most situations although I do have a 
piano
that I work on in a small concert hall in which I worked closely with a
committee of pianists to select hammer and voice for the piano as they
wanted it when I was rebuilding the action for them (Steinway B).  The 
group
of 5 or 6 professional pianists and teachers ended up choosing a Wurzen 
felt
hammer (Ronsen), a comparatively soft pressing when compared with the more
typical lacquered up hammer or a Renner performance type hammer, and with
the exception of the top two octaves received no hardeners, and even then 
a
very light application.  The piano sits next to a 30 year old Bosendorfer
228 which produces somewhat more power and the complaints I get (not too
many :-)) are never about the Steinway being too soft but do happen with 
the
Bosendorfer being too loud and bright and I've voiced it down some to 
please
the even below where I would prefer to hear it.  The hall is rather live
though.  Just one example.  Personally, I find that Steinway a bit dark 
(and
I probably lean toward warmer and slightly darker as my own personal 
taste)
so that might tell you something at least about this one situation and 
this
group of pianists, FWIW.

I find that with the professional pianists that I work with (and there are
quite a few) brighter is rarely the choice for their practice pianos. Most
want a pretty round and warm sound, clear and not muffled, but not what I
would consider bright.  Softer hammers have often been the choice here
(though not on a D necessarily, but most I know don't practice on D's).
They seem to have no trouble extrapolating to the concert hall but for day
in and day out practicing they want something more pleasing even erring on
darker over brighter.  Not always true, of course.  Many of the professors
whose pianos I keep at Stanford prefer the pianos brighter, but not all.
Perhaps that's because they are going back and forth between their studios
and the stage pianos more often.  Outside of that setting, however, with
most of the professional pianists that I work with I would say that I'm
generally asked to bring things down far below the level of where you 
would
expect a concert stage piano to be.  I do find that serious piano students
(on the other hand), especially those on the ascent, often prefer 
brighter.
I don't want to delve into my own theory about what that psychology might 
be
but I do see a trend coming out of one, in particular, well known East 
Coast
music school that seems to value power and brashness over nuance and 
depth.
Standards get set in all kinds of ways. 

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com



The softer hammer may make some customers very, very happy, but I don't
think it works in the concert hall, or in the professional pianist's 
studio
(or as the serious student's practice instrument). Perhaps there are
exceptions, and if so I'd like to hear about them.


Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape
it.” Brecht






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