Steinway heavy touch

[Bill Ballard]

In a message dated 16/06/03 9:43:40 PM, hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu writes:
>the "no pain:no gain" philosophy of playing on a >70gm keyboard, 
>IMMHO, is like beating your head
>against a wall because it feels so good when you stop.

I took care of a pianist once, a student of Serkin's, who constantly 
broke strings on his Steinway A II, in a small room in his farmhouse. 
I told him if he raised the lid full stick, he would not break 
strings because he wouldn't have to drive the piano as hard. But, he 
insisted, if he raised the lid he would drown himself out. The 
impetuousness of the artist.

The health issues here are quite similar to those in tuning. The 
question is which is more stressful to tune, a high-torque pinblock 
(150"/# and up) or a medium one (75-100"/#).  Regardless of what 
conditional we're in athletic or potato, or how at ease we are with a 
tuning hammer, when you put us on a tight block, it requires more 
muscle and if you've got that, more energy. It's an extra physical 
challenge no matter what physical shape you're in. I know my stress 
level is much lower with a 100"/# block than a 175"/# block. And I'm 
not convinced that a solid tuning necessarily requires such a tuning 
pin grip.

The same could be said of an action with a stiff dose of inertia. I 
imagine that someone well-grounded in the natural way to play would 
feel any more comfortable with a high inertia action, than a 
compulsive-obsessive piano performance major. I see nothing wrong 
with lightening people's actions.

Who knows, maybe a light filing of the hammers would give the sound 
the teeth they're trying to get the piano to show. The interesting 
part of this thread is that it started off with the a Steinway 
vertical, got transferred into a grand, and from there generalized 
and abstracted, with an interesting tangent of RSI. Does kind of hint 
at the group of us for whom pianos seem mainly to be grands, doesn't 
it. <g>

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

"Lady, this piano is what it is, I am what I am, and you are what you are"
     ...........From a recurring nightmare.
+++++++++++++++++++++