[CAUT] Steinway sound

[David Love]

Horace:

Not going to respond to everything there as some of what I said used your
comments for a springboard and weren't necessarily aimed at agreement or
disagreement with you particularly, just observations.  In short, the varied
outcomes on these actions over the past 100 years were less due to design
changes than accidents of executions or parts suppliers or came about as a
reaction to those varied executions and random unintended changes--I think
we agree there.  Some things were latched onto as the basis for future
changes for one reason or another (not necessarily a good reasons) some were
more important some less, some rejected altogether over time.  A cottage
industry was born perhaps in large part because of the horrendous outcomes
produced by 7-9 leads in each key to compensate for poor hammer
weight/leverage matching.  In spite of that some pianists grew up on those
actions and are comfortable with them--might even like them!  Still as
technicians we have to make a choice, usually, and use our best judgment to
put things where we think they ought to be in order to please the greatest
number of pianists.  We will invariably displease some.  At that point we
can shoot the pianists (or ourselves) but those aren't good choices so we
just accept it--not everyone will be pleased.  In spite of that I think we
should be cautious about jumping on bandwagons of touchweight design that
are themselves the unintended consequence of unintended consequences,
perhaps.  That's where I was going.

So let's get specific.  If we look at enough old NY Steinway actions (as we
both have) we can see that there was a design intention.  That can be
characterized as high ratio, light hammer, medium inertia through the key
(thus the 3-2-1-0 pattern that is often present).  For various reasons it
didn't always work out that way but we can see that the intent was there.
The law of unintended consequences that we outlined has led things in a very
different direction: lower ratio, heavier hammer and, depending on the
designer, medium to low levels of inertia through the key lead pattern.  The
cottage industry that has been born has had a tendency to test the lower
limits of that and move in the direction of very low ratio, heavier hammer
and very low inertia through the key (some generalizing here, bear with me).
But this, as I see it, is a consequence of those other unintended
consequences no less and I wonder if that is really a good direction (I
don't think it is), where you cross that line, or if we haven't abandoned
something that was a pretty good idea but just got muddled in the poor
executions. 

Pianists are obviously important for feedback on these matters but their
input can be unreliable in how we make choices.  We're not even sure if what
they respond to in an action is the same thing that we are concerned with
(say, touchweight or low inertia in this case).  And because they tend to
get used to or adapt to just about anything (that's part of their skill),
what they say they like can be very misleading, at least in terms of our
ability to make choices on a specific piano that needs to appeal to a broad
spectrum of pianists.   

So my main point was what do we do when given the choice or opportunity to
set something up?  Which direction do we go in and why?  In terms of action
set up was there a method to what is now considered the madness of setting
up a concert grand with high ratio, low hammer weight, 9.5mm (.375") mm key
dip and 48 mm (1 7/8") blow?  And is the band wagon we are jumping on of low
ratio, high hammer weight 11 mm key dip and 44 mm blow a better set up or
worse or does it matter.  We can always just pick something safely in the
middle, I suppose.  But when you factor in the tonal implications of those
choices, maybe the middle just means uncommitted.  


David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com




-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway sound

>That's assuming that you agree that all the changes that happened were
>actually deliberate "design changes".

That's not an assumption that I make...quite the opposite, if you recall.

<snip>

Or...from still another perspective, if we've already shot the 
designer and moved forward, whom do we shoot when our own designs 
fail to please?

Best.

Horace