false beats, real jazz and satisfaction

[Farrell]

IMHO, you are correct. The soft (left) pedal on most vertical pianos is 
nothing more than a marketing effort, on the part of manufacturers, to paint 
their vertical piano "the same as" a grand piano.

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message ----- 
> >From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com>
>>The soft pedal of most uprights is the one that pushes the hammer rail 
>>forward. I suspect the "moderator rail" is the mute rail - usually the 
>>middle pedal on verticals equipped with that feature (if one can call it 
>>that - I have several four-letter-word descriptions for those #%&$s).
>>
>>Terry Farrell
>
>
> Correct. The moderator is the "mute rail" (middle pedal in uprights). The 
> soft pedal is the left pedal which makes nothing except pushing the hammer 
> rail forward, which is definitlely not audible. Many customers ask me: the 
> left pedal doesn´t work. Could you fix it? My answer is always: It works, 
> but you can´t hear anything!
>
> In my opinion the left pedal in uprights  is just an an attempt to copy 
> the effect of the left pedal in grands. Obivously, it doesn´t work and 
> won´t ever work. The theory is: shorter way, lesser energy, quiet sound. 
> In praxis it means: shorter way, no idea as to energy, same sound. I work 
> as psychologist at the university in my hometown (making my PhD) and am 
> toying around with the idea to test that in a scientific way. But I have 
> not the technical possibillities to realize it. An idea could be to use 
> Yamaha discPiano and make subjects listen to the same song with and 
> without soft pedal and to compare the results. Anyway: the left pedal in 
> uprights produces no audible effect. Other opinions?
>
> Gregor