[CAUT] Press vs Stab voicing (was Re: The Importance of "Subject:")

Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net
Sat Jun 12 09:48:51 MDT 2010


Keith Roberts wrote:
> Then I should also say the hammer in the test needs to be the same.  The 
> hammers in Ron's post must of had too much glue put in the solution at 
> pressing time. He wasn't separating fibers, he was putting holes in a 
> resin/fiber block that had no elasticity.

That sounds like it to me. Except that I don't reach for the 
vise grips unless nothing else works, most of the voicing I do 
is similar to this. It consists mostly of getting hammer sets 
somewhere below the pain threshold. Next, and less common are 
the complaints on low tenor, high bass, and killer octave 
tone. Usually one or two specific unisons that figure 
prominently in whatever piece they are currently spending a 
lot of time practicing. Then, rarely, evening, smoothing, 
refining, and shaping the tone toward something specific. It's 
a treat for me to push needles into a hammer where that's 
physically possible, and take the time working with the owner 
toward something beyond pain reduction. It just doesn't happen 
that often.


> I think it's pretty obvious that if you take a tri needle and pepper the 
> the top 3 mm of a hammer enough, the layer comes apart. I don't think 
> you untangled the wool fibers to get that to happen. I think the fibers 
> are breaking.

I don't think we untangle fibers in hammers with any voicing 
technique short of combing.
Ron N


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