On Apr 22, 2010, at 9:36 PM, Israel Stein wrote: > While the actual skill of moving the pins on a harpsichord or a > lightly strung wood-framed piano is quickly and easily learned (not > much more demanding than turning a violin peg), the metal framed > pianos with much heavier stringing, all those friction points and > much more tightly held tuning pins required the development of a > hammer technique through extensive practice to even be able to come > close to a semblance of a temperament pattern (whichever one was > being aimed for) - never mind stability. Another factor is the unison (not operated by stops, so requiring some kind of mute and technique to use it), and the very confusing arrays of tuning pins, not on grands so much as squares and uprights. Reading Montal's description of the various tuning pin patterns, and problems of figuring out which pin you are on, and uprights with hammers striking toward the player (etc, etc) - lots more variety than we see today - a non-professional would have a hard time of it. Another factor is complex action mechanisms that are far more likely to have problems (Montal calls it becoming "derangé") - than jacks in a harpsichord, where you are pretty much fine until a quill breaks - and an amateur can learn to replace one passably fairly easily. Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm
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