<html> <body> Greetings All,                          Steam voicing should be reserved for those pianos where there is no budget to do the job correctly, or there is little justification to spend a lot of money.   Light steaming of practice room pianos, is a way to keep your sanity in a 7 X 7ft room.  If you dry iron after the steam, you will rarely have a bumpy mess David.  It will also even the tone out quite a bit. Very deep needling ( 15mm )  at the 9 o'clock area, right down to the molding, with a single needle, will tame many of those very hard hammers.   This will build some good elasticity into the shoulders. Regards Roger At 06:44 PM 3/6/2005, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I've tried it also and I'm not that happy with it.  I'm going to stick to needles.   For me, steaming gave me unlevel strike surface which then had to deal with,   If I had done any needling prior to steaming...god what a bumpy mess...I've still got it in the bag of tricks but only for rock hammers. David Ilvedson <hr> Original message From: Michael Gamble To: Jerry Cohen Received: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 17:07:52 -0000 Subject: Re: Modern Tone II, the Return of the Question Hello Jerry, Alan and List Let us not forget Roger Jolly's wonderful steam approach. He sent me a copy of his treatise on the subject and I've tried it. It works. Needle-less voicing... worth a thought? Non? Michael G.(UK) <dl> <dd>----- Original Message ----- <dd>From: <a href="mailto:emailforjc@yahoo.com">Jerry Cohen</a> <dd>To: <a href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">'Pianotech'</a> <dd>Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 3:28 PM <dd>Subject: RE: Modern Tone II, the Return of the Question <dd>  <dd>  <dd>-----Original Message----- <dd>From: <a href="mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org">pianotech-bounces@ptg.org</a> [<a href="mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org" eudora="autourl"> mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org</a>] On Behalf Of Alan <dd>Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 1:08 AM <dd>To: 'Pianotech' <dd>Subject: RE: Modern Tone II, the Return of the Question <dd>  <dd>  <dd>P.S.  Part of my pursuit of this at this time is a desire to rescue an area Methodist church from the shrill, busy, ultra-bright, piercing, stident, trident (gummed up) sound of the little Samick SG-172 grand they bought. I'm pretty sure it's going to start with some serious string seating, bridge pin stabilization, and regulation--followed by a session in the back room with those hammers ... under a bright light ... with a rubber hose and brass knuckles, to soften them up. I don't THINK I could make it worse, even with what I know, now.  And, no, there are no other guild techs within two hours of here and no local yokels I'd want to invite to help. I am alllllll aloooooooone here in the elephant ivory graveyard. <dd>  <dd>  <dd>Alan, <dd>  <dd>I think the Samick is an excellent piano to start learning with. I did some voicing on one a few weeks ago. It was also shrill and painful to tune. The hammers are actually decent quality, and with needling, you can create nice elasticity in the shoulders, and create whatever you want as you approach the top. <dd>  <dd>Since you are just starting, my advice is to make some improvement in some section. If you try to do everything, you will get frustrated and lose perspective. For example, even though the whole piano sounds shrill, try to find one octave that is a little worse (or a lot worse) than the rest. Work only on that section, and try to make it blend perfectly with the rest of the piano. By doing this you will be developing your skills at not only tone building, but also creating an even line. After you have finished that section, pat yourself on the back, and leave the piano for maybe a week or two. Then you can start working on other sections.  If you work on the whole piano at once, you can easily lose your reference. <dd>  <dd>We met briefly during Don Mannino’s voicing class in Sacramento. While he spent more time on pre-voicing, he really did demonstrate most of the principles of voicing. I suggest starting with the shoulders, trying to feel the elasticity being created. Work on one note at a time. Make a few stabs, front and rear, and listen to the result. The difference should be heard in the mF and F levels. Listen very carefully. When you hear a difference, move to the next note, even if you haven’t finished the first one. Remember, the needling tool works a lot better than the unneedling tool! Eventually you can start working up to the crown, but stay away from the strike point for now. Use this area to create a nice mp and p sound. The final result should be nice tone which has variety from pp to F. At FF it should start to crash. Then you have created the full dynamic range of the piano. <dd>  <dd>It was good to meet you last month, however briefly, and I hope this helps. <dd>  <dd>Jerry Cohen <dd>NJ Chapter <dd>  <dl> <dd>  </dl> <dd>-- <dd>No virus found in this outgoing message. <dd>Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. <dd>Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.5.7 - Release Date: 03/01/2005 </dl></blockquote></body> </html>