Dorrie, With respect, what you describe (which I do know to be what is presently preached as gospel) is a recipe for real problems. The philosophical questions in your last paragraph would require quite a monograph themselves to address. Basically, as I noted in an earlier post, as a voicer (tone regulator) you cannot put in what is not built in. Before any manipulation of the hammer is done, you must spend a reasonable amount of time with the instrument. For the beginner, this can be several days. As one gains expertise and experience, this can often be reduced to (as with all generalities...) as little as five minutes; e.g., if the board is flat, you should be able to hear it, and judge accordingly what to do. The (much abbreviated) answer to your question (and the one always posed at such events) is that, of the major makers, Steinway has, historically, relied on the abilities of outside technicians to perform the end-user setup required for real performance situations. This approach (still radical a century later) takes advantage of the design qualities inherent in the instrument to respond well in a variety of acoustic/performance environments. Unfortunately, it also means that, for the technician, one has to be willing to take the time to learn, practice, etc. to gain the ability to do this; and, for the manufacturer, you cannot hide behind this rationale for unfinished and/or poorly completed work. Guess what provides the greatest increase in revenue, and thus, stock price. As to the specific process as described: I will look around and see if I still have my production notes from a voicing seminar I used to teach. If I do, and can put them into some kind of reasonable form, I would be willing to forward that process to individuals. (The size of the required attachment would flood the list server.) Also as noted earlier, you would have to remember that the process I use is no longer that which is used at either the factory or the concert basement. That being said, we are back to philosophical issues. What "kind" of piano is it? What kind of literature is played on it? What about the hall? Is it big? Small? Live? Dead? Are the people playing more likely to be truly competent or not? (That is, it is nice that folks graduate from college with music degrees in piano performance, it helps keep the MTA in business. This is simply not the same thing as setting up for Brendl.) None of these can be assessed in the factory. They can only be dealt with on site, by competent folks. Hamburg, etc. (including Yamaha and the Three B's) have dealt with this problem by producing cookie cutter instruments - true, some better, some worse, but basically pretty darned vanilla. New York, has, meanwhile, precariously clung to a mystique up to which (to steal from Mr. Churchill) they find it increasingly impossible to live. Anyway, please do not think that in any of this I seek to belittle the admirable work you have done in presenting the contemporary technique. Those seminars always try to cram way too much into way too little time, and always manage to leave my head spinning. Further, since I have not heard John in person, maybe I should break down and go to my first CA state convention in a while; and hear for myself. Hmm - too long, as usual - sorry - as my brother recently remarked after getting one of my emails: "Two-cents worth? Who says you can't beat inflation? All you have to do is turn a Greeley loose with a word processor!" On that happy note, Cheers! Horace +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Horace Greeley, email: hgreeley@stanford.edu CNA, MCP, RPT Systems Analyst/Engineer voice: 650.725.9062 Controller's Office fax: 650.725.8014 Stanford University 651 Serra St., RM 100, MC 6215 Stanford, CA 94305-6215 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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