Dueling Pianos

Horace Greeley hgreeley@leland.Stanford.EDU
Tue Feb 24 08:17 MST 1998


Ted,

My (probably) minority view is that you may have gone the wrong way here.

The lower tension bass strings, while desirable for some applications, do not
necessarily lend themselves to production of large volume.  (Yes, yes, I know,
lots and lots of exceptions.)  That may be debatable.

The softer hammers, on the other hand, is, I think, asking for the kinds of
problems
you are describing.  Folks who play in/put on/whatever, this kind of
"performance"
have nothing to do with music in their minds, therefore, anything having to
do with
the production of what might be considered good tone isn't even on the list
of considerations. The sole consideration is volume.  That is, all that counts
is how loud the piano is.

The engineers, if they are any good at all, and if they have even, by today's 
standards, low-end equipment, are going to be able to "sweeten" the "tone"
enough for the kind playing that "duels" produce.

To reduce breakage, I think I'd look at a good solid shape on the hammers 
(you didn't say what kinds of what on what kinds of "pianos"); lighten them,
and the action, enough to let the "pianists" think they can actually play
(which is to say, as light as possible without interfering with repetition,
maybe
as light as 38-40 gms down); lacquer (lacquer, not plastic) the you-know-what
out of 'em, and then needle them back to where they are just this side of 
broken-glass-in-a-tin-can-falling-down-a-concrete-stairwell.  Be sure to
"break" the edges of the hardened hammers ever so slightly, and do a
reasonable
amount of needling between the at-rest (non-shift) string cuts.  I think
I'd also
be sure to clear that left string in the trichords.

More information, if you want.

No, I don't think much of this kind of waste.  On the other hand, if you
don't do it,
someone like me will, and guess who'll be the (momentary) hero...

Hope this helps.

Geez - and before breakfast, or coffee, too...

Best.

Horace




At 09:18 PM 2/23/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>Many innovations come from the CAUT technicians because they are faced with
>different situations than we who do mostly tuning and repairs on home
>pianos.  Therefore, I have a question.  But first let me explain my
>situation.
>The cruise ship that I have been tuning for for about 4 or 5 years has
>decided to change their entertainment to a "Dueling Pianos" format.  To
>prepare for this my supervisor and I changed the bass strings on both
>pianos to low tension strings and replaced the hammers with totally
>untreated ones. The purpose of this was to eliminate or at least lessen
>string breakage.  Well, after the first week of dueling there were 5 broken
>strings between the two pianos.  My next visit is scheduled 2 weeks from
>now.  I shudder to think what I might find.
>
>My question is this:  Does anyone have a magic formula for preventing bass
>string breakage under heavy use?  I would be grateful for any suggestions.
>
>Ted Simmons
>Merritt Island, FL
>
>
>
>
Horace Greeley, CNA, MCP, RPT

Systems Analyst/Engineer
Controller's Office
Stanford University

email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu
voice mail: 650.725.9062
fax: 650.725.8014


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