What an irony that the groups of 2 and 3 raised (black) keys which supply the pianist with tactile knowledge of hand position at the keyboard also creates this asymmetrical wonder of frustration for those with fingers> say 15mm wide. Does any manufacturer stagger the width of their sharps for the sake of uniform 'gap'? Funny that (because my fingers fit in the 'gaps') I never noticed, but I'm certain I'd notice a width variation of 1-2mm in a sharp only 10mm wide at top surface. Rich Olmsted On Thursday, May 8, 2003, at 04:47 AM, Delwin D Fandrich wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "James Perkins" <jimperkins@mac.com> > To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org> > Sent: May 05, 2003 9:14 PM > Subject: Re: piano competition/Mason&Hamlin vs Steinway > > >> >> But speaking as a pianist with fat fingers, it has always puzzled me >> why the gaps between the sharps vary so much and even on the same >> piano- e.g. the C#-D# gap is nearly always larger than the F#-G# gap >> which is usually larger than the G#-A# one. On some pianos I cannot >> play on the tails of the white keys (between the black keys) which is >> a >> great problem with some chord shapes. >> >> One would have imagined these spaces to be uniform in the interests of >> pianists' finger accuracy. >> Or is it aesthetics coming into play here? > > > > Not really. It has more to do with the fact that the piano keyboard is > not > symmetrical. It is made up of two separate groups of keys: one with > three > naturals and two sharps, the other with five naturals and three > sharps. Get > a piece of paper and try to lay this out with complete uniformity > between > the sharps and you'll see the problem. You either have to fudge on the > gaps > or you have to alternate the width of the sharps. > > Del > > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives >
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC