And all this time working with Abbey Simon here, I always thought it was just an irritating (to me) habit! LOL Avery Todd On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Horace Greeley <hgreeley at sonic.net> wrote: > > Hi, Diane, > > FWIW, when I've worked with people who hummed while they played, I've > pretty consistently noted that these are the same people who really prefer > very bright instruments. > > For me, one of the most striking examples of this was Rudolf Serkin; and > the behavior was/is particularly noticable in recordings made during "Music > from Marlboro". Interestingly, Peter doesn't seem to have this habit. > > Best. > > Horace > > > ------Original Message------ > From: Diane Hofstetter > Sender: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org > To: pianotech at ptg.org > ReplyTo: pianotech at ptg.org > Sent: Sep 8, 2009 12:16 PM > Subject: [pianotech] Hearing Protection > > > > You may have noticed many performers humming along with their playing. This > helps activate the stapedius muscles sooner so that their contraction will > stiffen the ossicles, which act like levers, much like a grand piano action. > > The job of the ossicles is to transduce the acoustic energy entering our > ear into mechanical energy, which is much more powerful. They do this so > that when the energy enters the fluid filled cochlea, it is strong enough to > move the basilar membrane thus activating the hair cells, which send the > electrical message to the brain, which registers the sound. > > Thus, When the ossicles become stiffened, the sound is attenuated. > Unfortunately, the impact of the piano hammer on a hard blow happens too > quickly for the stapedius muscle to react and protect our hearing. > > I've tried humming while tuning, but for some reason it doesn't work too > well :-) > > Diane Hofstetter > > > Porritt, David wrote: > > Oh, and when your hearing is muffled after a rock concert, > > it's not from the muscle contractions, but from cochlear > > fatigue. Too much of that and you'll get cochlear damage. > Right. The little muscles both react, and recover, very > quickly. But they eventually fatigue when overworked > continually, quit damping effectively, and leave the cochlea > unprotected. That's the way I read it. > Ron N > > > Diane Hofstetter > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090911/725a9f91/attachment-0001.htm>
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