On Mar 4, 2011, at 10:24 PM, David Love wrote: > My preference is to find a hammer that’s as close to my goal as > possible and that requires the least amount of manipulation. While > I am comfortable with how to handle larger manipulations when > necessary I can’t say I prefer it or that it produces a particularly > stable result. > > David Love Well, I can't say I disagree, but I would rather be sure to start too dense than not dense enough. If the hammer doesn't have the degree of density and tension, particularly above the crown, to do the job to begin with, there is really no recourse but hardener. And there is less to work with in the sense of manipulating the spectrum. I have waited very patiently for overly soft hammers to "come up," and while it may happen sometimes, I have watched years go by with fairly heavy use, and still the same lack of "build" in the tone. The basic techniques have been well understood and pretty stable for many decades: leave a tear drop shape of essentially untouched, dense felt, with its point at the strike point (the point can be sharps or dull, to vary the final result). Deep needle the rest of the felt (not necessarily all the way down the shoulder, but at least half way), starting low and working up. Then adjust the area closest to the strike, usually with a single needle, to even things out, and do a bit of shallow crown voicing if needed for pianissimo. Also do shallow una corda voicing in between the "string groove" points on the hammers. This gives a very broad spectrum of tone color, if done skillfully. (It can also be done quite unskillfully, and leave results that are far below par). Furthermore, I find that it is quite stable, though I would qualify that by saying that it seems like the felt "repacks" after the first and maybe second thorough needling. The shoulders feel denser than they were left after the first voicing, so they probably became denser as the tension and density adjusted through the hammer. But overall, it is not a difficult model hammer to keep up. Usually after the third voicing it is quite stable, and the 2nd and 3rd don't take all that long. Furthermore, with that "untapped well of density" in the core, it is possible to voice up, either using a single extra long needle into the core or by filing. A good example of a hammer that needs little manipulation to get good results is the Renner Weickert. I had the opportunity to play a brand new set (no pre-voicing) on one of Michael Spreeman's Ravenscroft pianos, then play it after he had some a really mild shoulder job - maybe 3-4 strokes, 3 needle deep, per shoulder. Quite a development of range from such a small amount of work. They sounded "acceptable" raw. I think I will post this to the new Voicing list on MyPTG as a way to get discussion started there. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20110306/248b9698/attachment.htm>
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