What matters most ?

[Bill Ballard]

At 5:46 PM +0200 8/23/03, Richard Brekne wrote:
>Well Mike.. I am kind of an open-ended and broadly undefined kinda 
>guy ... :) Be that as it may... I was intentionally broad with this 
>as I wanted exactly the kind of directionally divisiveness as I 
>could get... I'm fishing for ideas that may help my own gel a bit 
>better.

I love it! Show a dozen people the same Rorshach test and ask each, 
"Do you think that prayer in our schools would solve problems like 
this?" <g>

At 5:46 PM +0200 8/23/03, Richard Brekne wrote:
>Actually,,, and this applies just as much to the voicing issue Ed 
>brought up... I'd like to just concentrate on the effect of key 
>inertia vs top action / hammer inertia plays. So I suppose that 
>means imposing a kind of neutral status for both friction and the 
>hammers hardness or softness.

Thanks for reminding us that the question concerned only inertia. 
(Although I'll give thorough thought to anything Ed wants to share.) 
I have real concerns about the practical basis for your question, 
however.

1.) If you're really interested in where "excess" inertia would be 
more objectionable, the key of the top action, the objection would be 
how each component accelerated. That would imply that it's possible 
to detect, in an action where inertia makes acceleration increasingly 
more expensive. which component's acceleration is suffering from 
inertia. Certainly we have David Stanwood's static tests and 
guidelines to to answer that question from a technician's standpoint. 
But show me a pianist who can accurately determine by feel, which 
component has the excess inertia. I mean, a key of average inertia 
with a top action of excessive inertia sitting on top of it probably 
behaves no differently than a high inertia key with a normal top 
action sitting on it. In the former, the key is ready to accelerate 
as easily as we'd want, but its motion is is restrained by the 
sluggish top action load. In the latter, the top action is ready to 
accelerate as fast as we'd want, but its motion is provided solely by 
the key underneath it which will always be too slow.

2.) Ric, you make it sound as if the choice we're making is a matter 
of a trade-off, say between where in a given scenario we'd prefer our 
inertia, the Lady or the Tiger. (Me, I'd much rather the tiger was 
overweight and slow to accelerate. <g>). But show me the practical 
situation where a given action would have these two ways to set 
itself up, and be otherwise indistinguishable except for the location 
of the excess inertia.

There are two ways to up the inertia of a key, adding weight to one 
side and adding weight to both sides. The former (normally referred 
to increasing the FW), if done to excess in an action with a normal 
Top Action Weight, will quickly render the action unplayable with Up 
Weights in the 5g range. So in posing this question you must have had 
in mind adding weight to both sides of the key, which *will* leave BW 
untouched. But show me the practical situation where there was a 
normal top action weight sitting on the capstan, and one had reason 
to increase the weight on both sides of the key, to the point of 
excess.

At 10:16 PM -0700 4/21/03, David Love wrote:
>I am reminded, however, of a presentation I saw some years ago by Rich
>Baldessin.  In short, he had a customer who complained of an action that
>was too light.  Taking lead out of the keys did not seem to solve the
>problem adequately.  Anyway, to make a long story short, he found that in
>order to satisfy the customer, what was needed was to add two leads, one
>behind the balance rail and one in front, equidistant from the center.  The
>net effect on the balance weight would have been zero, but the, presumably,
>increase in inertia was what the pianist was looking for.

This is a possible exception, but I'd be willing to bet that if Rick 
(for whom I have utmost respect), knew how to measure FW and had 
measured a piano she preferred, he would have discovered that she 
considered high inertia normal. But a rare exception. (Not knowing of 
course the BWs, SWs, KRs and SWRs involved.)

Ric, now that every has dumped all this stuff into one big heap, we 
could help pick through it better if you told us what you were 
thinking when you phrased this question.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"All God's Children got Rhythm"
     ...........Ivy Anderson in "A Day at the Races"
+++++++++++++++++++++