"David C. Stanwood" wrote: > I find that high zone hammer weights develop a > wider and fuller dynamic range if they are made and voiced appropriately... I find that this is true as well. Certainly at some point there exists a limit here due to touch concerns, but in general I tend to agree with what many many others through the last 100 + years have said.. namely that more hammer mass yeilds better tonal quality at the expense of touch. Tho this expense has definantly been lessened in the past few years thanks in no small part to David. > There is a recording made at Elon College NC on a Steinway D 1926 that > you put a beautiful beautiful board in... John Foy, the rebuilder, > requested a TopHigh hammer weight when I designed touch weight components. > This piano is VERY popular. Ruth Laredo raved about it etc.... There is a > recording recently made with this piano and the tone is vibrant, and as > varied as a painters palette. I'll get more information on this if anyone > on the list wants to order it and have listen... I would love to hear this recording. > > Light hammers rebound off the string more quickly so they are less tolerant > of lacquer or heat pressing... nothing worse than a light hard hammer.. > Ed McMorrow takes soft resilient hammers and lightens them until the tone > blooms but often there is so much weight removed that the tone is very > small. The same bloom may be had with a heavy hammer when the proper > balance of density gradient and resiliency is achieved by manufacturing > process and voicing techniques. The difference with the higher weight > hammer is that more vibration is had out of the soundboard... I see light > hammers as just not exploiting the full vibrational potential of the > board... but they can certainly sound beautiful. Having lived not 5 blocks from Ed for 3 years, I have had a few opportunities to listen to Eds results. I have an awfull lot of respect for Ed. He does a lot of homework before making up his mind about something. And my own view of his philosophy vary much agrees with this (above). There are definantly times where you want a smaller sound, and definatly times where you want a bigger one. That choice seems largely to be a matter of how much hammer mass is used. The quality of that amount of sound is in the realm of how well the hammer can be voiced, and what the resolution and character of the piano allows for to begin with. > > Richard Brekne mentioned the tone on the Steinway C at the Grieg Institute > in Bergen, with Wurzen felt. The hammer weight level on that instrument > was a 1/2 high. Beautiful tone... good job Richard! > Just so you know it David, there is only one professor out of 5 that prefers the other C there. Before we did the change this was exactly the reversed situation. And this is in spite of the fact that due to my own reluctance to use assist springs we have a little higher then usual BW on this instrument. > > Hammer weights have evolved upwards for good reasons otherwise the > evolution wouldn't have happened! It's more challenging to work with high > zone hammers. I can testify, based on extensive experience, that it's > worth the effort. If I were to pick the most appropriate weight level for > most situations I would say TopMedium. My personal pic would be 1/2 high. > > Thanks again John and everyone for the good comments... especially about > adjusting the weight of each set to work optimally with the piano.. a new > term some of us are using more and more is "Tone Weight".. what is the best > weight for the tone... hammer weight is the most overlooked aspect of > voicing and it's great that we are hearing more and more discussion about > hammer weight. There is so much to be gained by paying attention to > hammer weight! > > David Stanwood > > P.S. Hammer weight rating charts freely available at: > http://www.stanwoodpiano.com/touchweight.htm > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html
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