Touch Weight

[Richard Brekne]

madelyn mrykalo wrote:
> 
>      If we are going to change the front weight anyway, because
>      we are also changing out hammers, the MOI might as well be
>      dealt with then too.
> 

I would agree with this, but so far it seems to me we are pretty much
shooting in the dark as too just what we are accomplishing when moving
the keys moment of inertia around. It would appear given the discussions
on this that no one is really capable of describing exactly what happens
to the overall touch of an action when such a simple change in
configuration is made. Until you can do that, then you can not besure
that you are matching top action inertia with key inertia... or for that
matter even be sure you need to worry about it.

About all we have managed with all this so far is to be able to identify
a few isolated results of doing this or that..,, but we are unable to
put these in even the most restricted of overall perspectives. The
minute we try to we start dumping commments that sound very ....eh...
artistic and intellectual... but really make no sense if you start
really picking them apart. Some of that has to do with using laymans
terminology for physics concepts which inevitably cause lots of
confusion and misunderstanding. Witness the "what is inertia" offshoot
to this thread.

IMHO... we need to work out a basic physics model for what happens
overall.. to the general touch of the action first, and then put this
into the perspective of what we << feel >> or << sense >> as enjoyable
or not so as to be able to better identify which types of action
configurations yield what kinds of overall sensations.

When we do... I think we will find that there are more tradeoffs going
on then we perhaps as individuals are willing to account for now.

To date... the only real attempt at gathering tons of relevant action
data for such purpose has been Stanwoods, and that pretty much includes
only SWR relevant data that can describe in those terms a given actions
configuration. Still, combined with an objective set of questioning and
testing using pianists around the world to try actions with clearly
idendifiable differing configurations... one might begin to see some
tendancies. Indeed Stanwoods data does reveal some tendancies as is...
One is the average SW level for hammers which tends to fall in around
his 1/2 medium curve...(# 7) I believe. Another is the average BW seen.
When these kinds of averages are the result of direct observations of
thousands of instuments they immediatly have meaning and reflect a
general tendancy of preferences amoung pianists. Cool... as far as it
goes... but it doesnt really go very far at all... at least not in terms
of describing why these tendancies exist.

Perhaps we dont need to in the end.. regardless of how interesting this
all is. I think I read this into some of David Loves posts. And I agree,
if so, in princple. But if we first are going to try and understand
these things beyond what Stanwood has done (which is very very practical
in orientation as opposed to theoretical) then I'm afraid we all are
going to have to get a far better grasp of the relevant physics concepts
and their proper usage then is evident today.. Myself nonetheleast
included.

Cheers

And happy Touchweighting !!

Merry Merries

RicB


-- 
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
UiB, Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html