Action noise (was Beatles song)

[Stéphane Collin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phillip Ford" <fordpiano@earthlink.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 7:20 PM
Subject: Action noise (was Beatles song)


> >.....
> >      Should the positioning of the hammer tail relative to the top of
the
> >check be  so critical as to induce as noticeable a change in sound as is
> >reported,  then the conclusion seems inescapable  that the sound would be
> >varying as checking does or not occur.  I am not able to note, in my own
> >perception, to find such a correlation.

Just my unauthorized feeling about this : the effect of correct back check
height is (curiously) more audible a certain time after the attack of the
note (in the sustain portion, if this is the word for it), while, if I get
it right, playing without checking occurs mainly on very soft blows or on
quick and/or staccato notes, and in both conditions, you can't really hear
the full quality of the sustained sound.

>
>          I think all of these may be attempts to say the same thing.  A
> 'pulse' in the action or a slight dragging of the tail may result in a
> different type or volume of noise produced by the action, which is giving
> this 'masking effect', as you call it.  I put that in quotes because it's
> not clear to me whether the action noise is in fact 'masking' the sound
> output from the strings or if in fact is an integral, and perhaps
> desirable, part of what we recognize as piano sound.

In my unauthorised opinion, the quality of the thump, which is the mix of
all shocks occuring at the attack time, comes for 50 % in the magic of the
sound of the piano, certainly in the low to mid trebble part of the scale
(maybe 30 % left are for happy combination of overtones decay and 20 % for
the sympathic resonances).  But obviously, if the thump itself is nice to
hear (I like pof more than tak) it can be more present in the total mix of
the sound.  And if more present, it is one more element at disposal of the
pianist to make the instrument sing, accepted the fact that some very
skilled pianists have the ability to chose to use it (like a nice modulable
consonant) or not (for example when striking the note quite hard, but not to
the full dip of the key, and so minimizing the key landing noise).  I
noticed that with some hammers (not all) this is absolutely to correlate
with the accurate choice of the striking point, and not only for the part of
thump due to the hammer, but, I think, for all of them.  Some strike points
in combination with some hammers provide a more happily usable thump.

Best regards

Stéphane Collin.