hammer voicing

[Horace Greeley]

Richard,

>Oh oh, its the embedded reply endeavor again.  rm

Well, there's no reply like an embedded reply...

>What do you expect from a dead philosopher?  Was he before or after
>Newton?
>Enlightenment for sure.
>
>Which reminds me....  The Great Master after a momentary flatulence,
>proclaimed, in an exagerated German accent, " I schtink, therefore I
>am."

German?  French, perhaps, but the, I Kant remember...

>Who is Pennario?

Leonard Pennario, one of the many wonderful American pianists who has lived
out his/her career waiting for Rubenstein, Horrorwitz and Serkin to die,
only to be pushed off stage by yet another fast-fingered twit with no tone,
less techique, and egoes in inverse proportion.

But, the, I have no opinions on this subject.

>Another master told me "whoever voices with more than one needle
>doesn't know what they are doing", and proceeded to voice out a
>'zinging' bass note with one insertion of the needle.  The note I
>would have dropped and twisted.  But this was three hours before the
>performance. Later I came to realize he was referring to voicing out
>side the factory. Now I am not so sure, I am leaning toward the
>concept that resiliance should be made into the hammer not "deep
>needled" into it.  However until I work in a hammer factory, and
>install them....
>	There may be advanced physics to "explain" the interaction of the
>hammer and the string, but Leonard with one needle produced results
>in 3 seconds.  He spent more time pulling and pushing the action than
>voicing and all of that in less than 10 minutes. (before concert, I
>don't know what he spent for  new hammers) What I didn't get to learn
>was how he arrived at and maintained the hammers for such a delicate
>operation.  I thought I would have the chance to be shown this, but
>alas he is with Descartes now. (I hope) Fortunatly from what I
>learned about filing from him, I was able to peice together a method
>that was suitable enough.
>	As with many of the arts of our profession there is no explaination,
>only demonstration. That doesn't mean you don't think about it.  I
>still haven't figured out those executive balls, or pool balls for
>that matter that strike another, one stops dead and the other shoots
>off at close to the same rate.  Or take a golf ball, how it bounces
>off the floor.  Or how it is in contact with the club face for a
>moment and then begins de-acceleration, yet travels for 250 yards,
>350 yards if you are Tiger Woods.  I wish I chould bounce hammers
>like golf balls to see how high they would rebound.  But who knows
>what that would tell?


I've left the above intact because I think it says some very important
things about how we approach what we do.  Most often less is more,
particularly when dealing  with voicing issues.

I am not sure about the resiliance issue, being not yet convinced by much
of anything published that the researchers are motivated to look beyond the
simply reductive analysis of what goes on (maybe) between hammer and string.

If the Leonard to whom you refer was Leonard Jarrett, you have had a rare
experience.  One of the few real voicers of recent generations.  I knew him
only as he was failing, but we enjoyed hours of conversation.

 Your description of the "final" (to the extent that anything we do to a
piano is truly final) voicing that was done prior to a performance.   In my
own work, being slow, it is not unusual for me to spend the better part of
a week on a D before letting anyone else hear it.

No, I do not think that there is any "real" reductive analysis that is
adequate.  An immensely valuable tool, absolutely; but it does not replace
the experience of having done something a zillion times.

Fun.

Best.

Horace




Horace Greeley			hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu

LiNCS				voice: 415/725-4627
Stanford University		fax: 415/725-9942