Lacquer fight! Lacquer fight!

[Richard Brekne]

Erwinspiano@aol.com wrote:

>   *>>> You know what the real problem is here Ric .I'm attempting to 
> explain & derive meaning from the words Bernard stated  from the point 
> of a hammer that is starting out to soft or loosing to much to 
> "internal friction"(his words) which does mean its  spring rate is 
> tooo low. This is what he's refering to. Or perhaps that it doesn't 
> have enough.Perhaps you could enlighten us.*

You know Dale... I'm going to let you hash this part out with Bernard, 
as they are his words.  To begin with, I really didnt want to get into 
the discussion of which method is better then the other in the first 
place... I just wanted to bounce back and forth whether or not too many 
young voicers were reaching for the bottle to quickly, without being 
aware of what kind of hammers were being addressed..... without 
mastering to (some degree of proficiency) the needling technique.... and 
if this is the case, why.... and what can we do about it.

> *   Whatever. The hammer is  spending too much time on the string 
> right?. Low rebound rate. I get it how bout you?*


Again... You hash out Bernards words with Bernard.   But read his 
sentence again tho..... he says

    "The rebound time is in correlation with the felts /inner friction
    losses/ (or imaginary part of elastic modulus) , not to /stiffness/.
    A high quality felt has a low rebound time."

You tell ME if he means a "low rebound time" is synomnymous with the 
hammer spending too much time on the string.


> * I also get that in your mind you don't ever use lacquer on anything 
> & your always thinking from the point of a denser pressed hammer or 
> tensioned as you say & yes i think your use of the word is in my 
> opinion incorrect & mis-leading. I've explained that & you don't get it.*

I spent many years trying out all kinds of different voicing 
approaches.  You forget I am American and spent the first 15 years of my 
carreer over there.  If you want to know the truth of the matter it is 
just these past 3-4 years I decided to  master (and I mean really 
master) the technique of voicing by needling for concert classical level 
work.  My experience with this has led me to clearly define my personal 
preferences both from a standpoint of what I was able to accomplish 
myself with other techniques and from what I heard from very 
accomplished voicers on both sides. 

So..yes... at this point I have rejected the lacquered approach. But 
again.. that is personal preference and I am not really interested in 
argueing that bit... nor getting into a hopeless arguement about which 
method is inherently better then the other.

As for my use of words.... I dont know what to say.. but when a person 
clearly qualifies a words operating domain, and then proceeds to use it 
in a gramatically, descriptively correct manner within the stated 
qualifications... then one has done what one can do in attempting to 
communicate clearly ones thinking.  So... like it or not... lacquering a 
hammer does indeed ruin its ability to be needled up later.  That does 
not needfully mean that the entire hammer is totally wrecked beyond any 
musical use any and all purposes... actually it doesnt mean anything 
more then exactly what it states.... but then it doesnt mean anything 
less then that either.  Where you wish to take that further... is out of 
my hands :)
 
As for the rest of it... I just ended up deleting this...  I'm not into 
argueing which kind of voicing is better then the other... nor into 
trying to get into a back and forth about who misunderstood who... who 
misinterpreted who... whoes not interested in learning what.  Heck I 
just wanted to talk about why seemingly  so few people seem to be 
capable of dealing with needling  techniques, and evidently just 
reaching for the bottle of juice without really knowing when to and how 
to use that either.

This whole thing started off I may remind you, with somebody writting in 
a post asking what to do with a set of hammers that had been drenched 
with lacquer to the point of rock hard.... with a few interesting 
experiences and related questions following... eventually a question 
which prompted Andre to ask if anyone had heard of "needling up".

Cheers
RicB