Soft pedal

[Susan Kline]

At 11:41 AM 2/15/98 EST, you wrote:
>Karen;
> One cause of this might be that the player was using the soft pedal while
>holding down the sustain pedal thereby allowing an abrupt application of the
>soft pedal to "throw" the hammers against the strings due to the lack of
>spring resistance against the hammer butts.  (is that sentence long enough?
>:-)
>Jim Bryant (FL)
>

Hi, Karen

I think what Jim says here is probably what is happening, and that your most
realistic option is to educate the pianist. Perhaps if you told her that,
since it is the "soft" pedal, she has to press it softly for it to work? If
she thinks a little too sharply for that rather preposterous statement to
wash, you could explain that if she holds the right pedal down, the hammers
will fly up too easily when she stamps on the left pedal. 

Is she, by any chance, someone who uses the pedals as a percussion section?
Or someone who pushes the right pedal down at the beginning of the
selection, and raises it at the end? In that case, knowing that the soft
pedal won't work okay if the other one was down might improve her playing style.

If you increased the friction of the soft pedal linkage (firm bushing in the
hole where the dowel comes through the keybed?) might it slow her down
enough? Probably a bad idea ... might jam. Maybe installing a coil spring
between the hammer rail and the action bracket so the rail couldn't fly
forward? Rather bizarre, and hard to anchor ... You could install a larger
stop block (of scrap hammer felt) between the hammer rail and the action
bracket. That might make it harder for her to fling the hammers. 

Good luck! I hope she isn't someone who takes offense easily.

Susan

Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com

"You can say goodbye to the past, but you can never wipe it out."
			-- Ashleigh Brilliant