Hi Paul
Thanks for the straight forward reply. Hey I know Wally too and he is the friend of so many. I just find it good natured amusing to see that kind of warm affection supplant the other real product name. Really, he's done so much and dersves that. As a point of clarity there is also the Abel product sold by Piano-tek but I think we know the difference usually. A few brief comments interspersed below.
If we could limit the limitations of the comments to small practice rooms and studios becasue that is what I expereinced again last week. A newer Mason A with the usual hammers that I had to annihilate to get them into a better place. I was still not pleased.
Dale S. Erwin
www.Erwinspiano.com
Paul williams
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Hammers are felt springs--was Steinway....
Hi Dale
I think it might be a good idea forall of us to contact hammer producers to develop some sort of a soft (nottoo much so) hammer designed for just practice rooms and other small teacherstudios, etc. I'm wondering if there would be a market for this.
There has been such a hammer and a market for the past 15 years. The Ronsen VFG and more recently Wurzen AA felt.
It is the VFG hammer that originally got my attention in approx 1993 or 4. I heard an upright at a fellow techs shop. Ater listening carefully my inquiry was, that hammer? He told me and the next question was, what did you do to them. He said..Nothing. I just got them in. In disbelief I said really? Yup Clear, excellent sustain and a fine blend of partials. On most uprights where these have been installed, so the experience was repeatable with consistency. Have installed several dozens of these for private clients mainly and also institutions.
After installing my first set it became my default hammer of choice. Nice clear sound, no juice and no needling. Minor needling later and the hold fantastic. For uprights and practice room/small studio rooms being able to install this type of hammer was a low cost value added product for the University & for me. The hold up famously well. Yeah I know, to good to be true.
On as scale of 1 to 10 if no.1 is a cotton ball and no. 10 is a rock where on the stiffness gradient would you like your practice room/small room hammer to be for this application?
I spend a lot of time voicing down practice grands that are played16 hours a day. No matter what I put on them, they're harsh and painfulin just a few months, but built well enough to handle quite a few yearsof abuse.
This would not be your experience if you decide to install a set of these so I encourage you to try the VFG Ronsen hammer and stop the bleeding out of your ears
On the other hand, I don't want to startout with a "mushy" sound that will only get to a nice level in6 months.
There are no hammers in the Ronsen family I would describe as mushy. David Love described them well in a recent post. These students who play these pianos have futures that are sittingthere in our hands to make them work and sound properly, so I think theremust be a "happy family" somewhere. We have to keep in mind whywe're all here....for the students, mostly. The stage is a totallydifferent issue. I agree. Hey We all started somewhere
Anything to lesson this massive careof practice pianos is all welcome to me. I'll make you a deal.
Paul, heres my offer....Pick a practice room piano. I'll provide you with a set of VFG felt up. hammers and if you do not like them don't pay for them. I am that confident.
I have installed them in Yamaha P202s,P22s of several versions. Kawai up. Baldwin Hamiltons etc. Yamaha and Kawai grands of many sizes.
More Technician feed back as of last night at the West-pac convention:
I spoke with Steve Brady & Nick Gravange who both took me aside privately to tell me enthusiastically how pleased they were and what a great tonal platform the new Weickert hammers were. Steve said he couldn't believe how even and beautiful the tone was and how little he had to do in a Falcone .
Nick said he used the set I sent him in a BB Mason for a performance venue and he inquired as to my voicing protocol. He did use some 8 to 1 solution to get them up a bit in the bass and a weaker solution higher up to get it where the room and others thought it should be. A further comment was if it would had been his piano in his own home he would have done nothing at all.
Or, I'll just have to keepthe needles in good supply. BTW, I do steam them as a "quick"fix...with a capachino steamer which the students find fascinating to watch!
Wouldn't it be great to stop or seriously limit all the voicing gymnastics Paul? I feel your pain
learned this from Roger Gable about 15 years ago. Nice quick fix. If the hammers are rocks, however, it doesn't really work well andI don't run the steamer over them more than twice.
What say you fellow CAUT's?? I'm I outin left field....again :>(??? just trying to learn this crazycaut thing!!
I would enjoy hearing feedback as well
Thanks Paul
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--wasSteinway....
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 thethe 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 characterizesfirmer pressing of hammers all over the planet and they tend to be highin maintenance thereby consuming precious school budgets which are.....increasinglyscarce. I realize there are many specific situations and reasons why weuse a particular type of hammer, including me and I have sometimes chosenpoorly.
It is a fact that, the technical definition of a piano hammer isa non-linear felt spring (See five lecture on the acoustics of thepiano.) Yet primarily many hammers more resemble the consistency of buffingwheels. Or cotton balls filled with lacquer. And we are expected to makethem work and hold up? Really?
In my opinion there only a few hammers made currently in the world thatfit the true model of this description. 2 in this country, 2 in Canadaand sometimes by happy accident....China. There may be others elsewherebut I am unaware of them. And there may be some well known brand of pianoswhere the pendulum is swinging back the other way but am unclear whichones at this moment.
For 25 years I have observed with keen interest the hammer wearin institutional settings. Routinely these ahmmers are infected with deafening earsplitting sounds in practice rooms, and breaking stringswith in very short periods of time etc. In light of this I ask, shouldwe really embrace the predominate styles of hammer for high use institutionalsettings, especially practice rooms?
There is, without a doubt, in my mind ,that hammers acting as afelt spring have a much greater ability to maintain a musical tone &provide precious voicing stability with out massive amounts of needlingor much anything else.
The resistance to this idea /reality is especially perplexing and havenot heard many support it. Is it possible to over look the pianos in ourcare that are not being problems in high use situations? Do we ask, whyare these hammers holding up and still sounding musical, and others not?hmmm.
Considering the problematic nature of hot/ hard pressed hammersin high use situations, does it not make sense to consider a differenthammer choice and experience this for oneself?
Professionally speaking , I am tonally and musically driven andvalue both my hearing and the music as you all do. I value the samefor the students and teachers I serve and it is why I take the risk tostate this premise clearly and passionately.
The fact that I possess a bias is not for nothing and not because I aminvolved 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 2B's each; one has 2 M's, one an L, and the other has her own personal Yamc-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'shers, can do very little. The M's are nice and not played hard, the L islikewise not pounded on, but played regularly and has Abel Naturals on. It's the 4 B's that need constant attention! One prof is anextremely hard player with likewise hard playing students, so I'm fixingbroken strings about every 6 weeks. Mostly this happens in the capo, butthe Sty with the Sty hammers has busted 4 bass strings in 2 years. Hispianos have a set of regular Sty hammers and the other has a set of WallysNaturals. Both break strings about the same. The other prof has NY hammerson 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 offthe let off and drop, they'll complain that pp or ppp is impossible tocontrol.
They are bright! I'll voice them down, but it only lasts a couplemonths. I can see how that would tire the poor prof, but what canwe 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-Hammerweights
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 teacherwith 55 years of
experience there stated: "...you can't listen to 4 or 5 hours of abright
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 apiano
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). Thegroup
of 5 or 6 professional pianists and teachers ended up choosing a Wurzenfelt
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 thena
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 withthe
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 ratherlive
though. Just one example. Personally, I find that Steinwaya 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 andthis
group of pianists, FWIW.
I find that with the professional pianists that I work with (and thereare
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 whatI
would consider bright. Softer hammers have often been the choicehere
(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 forday
in and day out practicing they want something more pleasing even erringon
darker over brighter. Not always true, of course. Many of theprofessors
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 pianostudents
(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 mightbe
but I do see a trend coming out of one, in particular, well known EastCoast
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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