Practical Concert Work

Richard Brekne Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
Sat, 29 May 2004 02:18:49 +0200


Point taken.. but at some point one has to wonder.... yes ?  3 mm letoff 
is a lot in most books... and drop added to that is getting down there 
no matter how you look at it.  You'd have to arrange things pretty off 
the wall to aviod ending up with less then 5 - 6 mm.... 

Whether this example is border line or not.. one certianly will get 
there, and cross the border no matter what some pianists are ready to 
believe when invited into a respected technicians shop.

I understand the relativist line.... but isnt 3 mm let off a bit on the 
deep side ?

RicB

>
> You mean, you can't tell it's not regulated?
>
> Cheap jokes aside. If it feels and responds right, it's regulated, 
> regardless of the absolute precision of any one parameter. I tried an 
> experiment a few years ago, finishing up the regulation on a Kimball 
> grand rebuild. On the final pass, after everything else was as close 
> to where I wanted it as I could realistically get it, I evened out any 
> remaining detectable (by me) differences in feel at the bottom of the 
> stroke by adjusting the letoff slightly. Of the half dozen people I 
> invited in to try it before it was delivered, two made it in. Both 
> from out of town, strangely enough. Both said the same thing about the 
> action. It felt good, responsive, and was controllable at low volume 
> levels. Both said it had been some time since they had played a piano 
> that they could enjoy playing softly. Sacrilege, I know, but an 
> interesting result for so heretical an action (sorry). We take our 
> shots, and we ponder our scores.
>
> Ron N
>


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