The Good kind of Heavy

[Barbara Richmond]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Brekne" <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 2:52 AM
Subject: Re: The Good kind of Heavy

> >
> Well.. I spend a good deal of time talking to the students and faculty
> and getting them to understand this <<separation of touch and tone>>

Do you emphasize the separation just to aid in your experiment?  Or do you
think this will help them in expressing their concerns with you and future
techs?  It's not that I don't believe in educating pianists, because I do
(and I do it all the time).  But there is a lot to know and sometimes they
don't quite understand.  Haven't you heard wonderful musicians say with
great authority something that was so off the wall that it was hard not to
laugh?

I know it's possible to separate touch from tone, but the connection is so
strong and can be sooooo deceiving, but I guess I've said that before....

Of course, I've experienced comments about touch alone, too, when it *was*
totally on the mark--especially when I walked into a university where the
previous technician was hard of hearing (God bless him--he was a nice guy,
just couldn't hear) and he couldn't hear clicks, etc.  The place was full of
Teflon Steinways pinned with, uh, what seemed like telephone poles--he
couldn't hear the clicks and thought tighter meant quieter (yikes!).  Plus,
to silence other unheard clicks, he over tightened screws with the results
of either breaking heads off (that included the set screws on the
dampers--oh my!), or splitting out flanges.  Mmm, that was some fun--I had
no parts budget!  Then I had to educate the Dean of the School of Music
about how pianos work and why we needed parts!


> piano techs operate with that pianists usually do not. And comments and
> compliments as it were do not come usually unsolicited in these
> conextions. I ask :) and often.

Can you do me a favor?  Next time you are talking to someone about the heavy
(but good) touch, ask them what it allows them to achieve musically (or, if
you will, does it allows something else not possible on other pianos).  Just
say there is a nutty female tech in the US that wants to know.  ;-)


> Long story. Initially this piano was not in use because the previous
> tech didn't like it and let it fall apart in hopes they'd junk it. Lots
> of broken strings... etc etc. So I started making it useable... I only
> have X amount of hours a week to spend on such and we have a lot of
> pianos so its been convenient to stretch the gradual upgrading over
> time.

I understand that.  I did five and half years of what seemed to me like MASH
UNIT work (on 90 instruments), and just when the going got good, my husband
accepted a job 900+  miles away.  Dang.

> I started off rock hard, and was played thus for a while, got
> reshaped and very needled down to a mush tone, and has hardened up again
> a couple times. Each time I make a change I start fishing for comments.

>. The whole purpose being to seek answers to exactly
> these kinds of questions. This one makes my head scratch... as it seems
> to break a lot of the rules we generally agree on about touch do's and
> don'ts.

Aw, but don't you know?  There are always exceptions to the rules!  Isn't
that the only constant?  :-)

> I have another instrument that has been receiving comments lately of
> being heavy in a "bad way" Again... very largely voicing independent...
> recently had strikeweights and frontweights evened out to get a 38 gram
> balance weight without regard to the existing action ratio. Just evened
> out what was. The like the evenness to be sure... but the touch wears
> them down. I'll have to pull it and supply you all with the same kind of
> data soon.

Thanks, Ric, this discussion has been fun.


Barbara Richmond, RPT
somewhere near Peoria, IL