Vertical-vs-Grand action.

[reggaepass at aol.com]

Greetings,

Here is something that I sent to the CAUT list a while ago, but don't 
think it went to pianotech yet.  It's more anecdotal evidence to 
support what Mark has said.

I write to you today to report an interesting experience we have had at 
CalArts this past semester.  For some of you, this information is 
“yesterday’s paper.”  For others, it may be a welcome introduction.

It all began innocently enough with a complaint about inadequate 
repetition on a particular note of one of our performance pianos.  
Going over the regulation adjustments with a fine toothed comb helped a 
bit, but fell short of an adequate remedy.  The hammers have been filed 
a few times and, as you've probably guessed by now, there was 
insufficient hammer weight for good repetition (upweight in the upper 
teens as opposed to the mid twenties).  Judicious application of 
“small” and “mini” binder clips to the hammer shank enabled a 
substantial improvement in repetition. (The clips are readily available 
through your local office supply store for just pennies each and may be 
fine tuned for weight by sliding large center pins into to holes left 
open after removing the “ears” upon installation of the clip itself.)

As with other maladies that rear their ugly heads, if something has 
gone bad with one note, it’s usually a good idea to check the others.  
Sure enough, they all benefited from increased down and up weights via 
shank clips (and the attendant re-regulation of rep. spring tension, 
rep. lever height, drop, backchecking and parameters affecting 
aftertouch.)  Hammer replacement is scheduled at the next available 
opportunity, but this looked to be a good “bridge” measure to hold us 
over until then.

So far, nothing unusual about all that.  What we thought was worth 
sharing was this: Although we hadn’t told our community of pianists 
that we had done anything at all, unsolicited praises and adulation 
(what a breath of fresh air!) immediately started coming in about the 
great voicing work we had allegedly done.  Sometimes it is tempting to 
take credit for something you haven’t done but are credited for 
anyway—like when you clean the keys and it feels so much nicer to touch 
that someone thinks you performed major action work.  But in this 
instance, we decided to tell the truth and leveled with them about what 
we did with the clips.  Their response to the operation was so 
positively unanimous that we proceeded to perform the same operation on 
other grands whose up and down weights were getting a little lean.  
Again, we didn’t prejudice anyone by telling them what we had done, and 
again, players noticed welcomed improvements in both touch AND tone.

It is common knowledge that, ultimately, touch and tone are inseparable 
issues.  This is as important an axiom for piano players as it is for 
us technicians.  But we were really surprised.  Had the additional 
weight been added in the form of newer, high-quality hammers of the 
proper weight, the improvements would have been quite predictable.  But 
to sound noticably better as a result of simply adding more weight to 
the shank in the form of a cousin to the paper clip came quite 
unexpectedly.  This held true for a variety of pianos of different 
makes and models, and was noticed by faculty and students alike.  What 
can we surmise from this?  That something in the players approach to 
the otherwise same instrument resulted in improved tone, something 
elicited by greater strike weight and the attendant regulation 
adjustments in pursuit of better repetition "improved" the tone?

This technique has been covered in convention classes before: A 
Bosendorfer voicing class and Richard Davenport’s “Prelude to Hammer 
Replacement” come to mind.  (Davenport mentioned extensive use of shank 
clips as an alternative to doing nothing at all in situations where 
hammer replacement and all that should go with it are not an option for 
economic reasons.)  In our recent experience at CalArts we had such 
dramatic feedback that we felt compelled to offer our testimonial.  
Does this scenario ring a bell for anybody else out there?

Thanks,

Alan Eder RPT


-----Original Message-----
From: schecter at pacbell.net
To: ed440 at mindspring.com; pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:02 AM
Subject: Re: Vertical-vs-Grand action.

   Hi, Ed. 
 
  I completely agree with your points about vertical touch weight, and 
would extend them to grands. I have added binder clips on one vertical, 
a Yamaha U1, and two grands, a very old Steinway with DW in the 30's, 
and a Hamburg O. In all three cases, the players were very happy with 
the change, and found it to improve their sense of control of dynamics. 
It seemed to put the effort level required for full expression into the 
comfort range of the player. When too little effort is required to 
achieve forte', then extra effort is required to control pianissimo, 
although it's a different kind of effort than when the action is too 
heavy. 
 
 For those considering trying this, note that you can reduce the amount 
  of strike weight added by moving the weight closer to the hammer 
center. 
 This also allows you to add weight to only a part of the action, 
  tapering in the effective weight by setting the weights along an 
angled 
 line that moves gradually farther from the center toward the hammer. 
 
 An additional benefit of the binder clips is that their quick 
  reversability allows the player to feel good about trying the 
experiment 
  with no great investment of technician's time or energy ($), and no 
big leap of faith required. The interesting thing in my three cases is 
that up to now, none of the three have wanted to remove the weights, 
and the total time of use is about six piano-years. Also, the players 
are all very advanced, and if there were any problems with noise or 
slipping or whatever, they would have uncovered them. 
 
 -Mark Schecter 
 
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