Dead Note

[Avery Todd]

Hi list,

Got a question for you. I was tuning a Kawai RX-6 (7') this
morning and the first time I played Bb2, it sounded almost
completely dead. It was so obvious that "what the h*** just
popped out. :-) It has the sort of sound that a hammer makes
when the felt has come unglued from one side. Much softer and
deader than the notes around it.

There's evidence of a spill of something sticky, like coke,
on the plate in the two middle sections. There's still some
residue there and the plate bushings are all a grayish color.
For the rest of the piano, the bushings are the normal wood
color. There's no evidence anything got into the action except
for 3-4 keys that have a dried liquid stain on them.

The hammer is not the problem. I lifted the damper and plucked
the strings and got the same dead type sound. I even pulled the
action to look closer at the hammer. There's also no evidence
of any problem at the bridge. Strangely, there's also no
evidence of anything on the wire or felt under the strings by
the tuning pins of that particular note, although there is on
some others.

My question is why would only that one note sound that way if
indeed, the spill is responsible?

Any other thoughts about why?

The piano will have very heavy use for the next 3 weeks, until
juries are over, so so it would be very difficult to find time
to do much of anything except restring that particular note.
But with all the recitals going on, I really don't want to even
do that right now.

Thanks for any ideas any of you might have.

Regards,
Avery
University of Houston

P.S. Have you ever noticed that when the words "The IRS" are
combined, it spells "Theirs"? Just thought I'd throw that in on
this fateful day!