aftertouch / hammer striking distance

[Israel Stein]

At 02:38 PM 1/27/2007,Ed Foote wrote:

>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>Subject: Re: aftertouch / hammer striking distance
>Message: 4
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>       I don't understand how the various amounts of aftertouch change the
>power, unless it is changing the blow distance.  All aftertouch is, at some
>level, a waste.  There is no more impelling power to the hammer 
>after escapement,
>so it doesn't help with acoustic power.  Since the key return 
>distance required
>to reset is increased, the more aftertouch for a given set of let-off,
>blow,and drop, the slower the repetition will be.

Ed,

To understand this, one must look beyond the strictly technological 
aspects of the piano and look at the interrelationship between the 
piano and the pianist's motion. The easiest way to conceive of this 
is to look at aftertouch from the pianist's perspective - as the 
follow-through to the keystroke. The same way as the follow-through 
in a pitcher's motion happens after the ball has left his hand and 
should therefore have no effect on the speed of the pitch - but we 
all know that the follow through affects everything about the motion 
before the ball leaves the hand and has a huge effect on the speed of 
the pitch. A pianist who feels insufficient aftertouch might just 
take something off the keystroke - since a shortened aftertouch 
(follow through) may result in some discomfort on too powerful a 
keystroke... Just one example of what might be happening...

Israel Stein