?? Voice ??

[Richard Brekne]

Barbara Richmond wrote:

>Joe,
>
>Ok, I'll be brave.  Pliers (vise grips) were sort of popular some years
>back, but it seems they are politically incorrect these days.  I learned to
>use them to soften up really hard shoulders (not lacquered ones!) to make
>needling possible where sustain was lacking.  Using vise-grips would cause
>cupping on the shoulder and then next, one would needle enough to remove the
>cupping.  Worked great to open up the sound on certain pianos.  I won't
>mention any names, but I learned it from factory tech reps--so somebody
>thought it was OK back then.  ;-)   Aw heck, things go in and out of
>fashion, except perhaps for orange shag carpeting and flocked wallpaper.
>
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>
I think we are talking about two different levels of voicing here.  You 
have your <<standard do what it takes to make a so and so piano 
useable>> type of job... and you have your <<critical concert top level 
for the most discerning of pianists>>  type of situation. 

For the later we are not just talking about getting them soft enough... 
or insuring a bit of sustain.   It should be entirely unecessarry to 
have to resort to any draconian measures for these kinds of jobs.  
Whether you are using soft hammers that require hardner to acheive any 
semblence of tone, or tensioned hammers that need needling to bring out 
the tone. 


>As with any voicing method (and there are a mess of them), the secret is to
>proceed with caution, since hammers can get destroyed by overdoing anything.
>
>  
>
Yep.

RicB

>Barbara Richmond, RPT
>Peoria, IL Chapter
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