On Sep 9, 2010, at 4:13 PM, Chris Solliday wrote: > I played the CC at Las Vegas this summer and was very impressed the > touch and its evenness. I was, however, literally frightened by the > tone quality. At first I thought that it was amplified and I asked > Bruce to turn it off. He assured me that it wasn’t and that if I > kept playing I would get used to “it.” To some degree I did but I > really felt like I would like an hour or two alone in a quiet room > to really warm up to something so atypical. The sound is HOT. The > sustain is long and it begins at a level that seems higher sooner. I didn't play the CC at Vegas enough to have an opinion along these lines based on experience. It happened to be busy or noisy in that section of the hall when I was making my rounds of pianos, so I only played it once or twice briefly, and I think the only impression I had was that I liked it better than the one at Grand Rapids - more variety of color, and a better feeling action. But that was just a fleeting impression - I'll pay more attention next time. However, on the speculative side of things, I think we should look beyond the shank and take into account the bushings - the new, hard bushing versus standard felt. Wipp flange, jack, and shank bushings (felt) all are going to compress a little at the beginning of a keystroke, eating up power and time. And I think the time factor is an important one. There is a time lapse between pressing the key and hearing the tone, and it is significant to the pianist, in the feedback loop. Taking away compression of all those bushings plus having less shank flex adds up to quite a bit on the micro-second scale of things. Then adding a small percentage of power (that isn't lost to the compression and flex), and, well, you are hearing a louder and a faster response. Put time and power together, and it is more noticeable. I don't think it would be that hard to adapt to, at least for somebody with some chops. Instant adaptation to brighter or softer voicing, different regulation specs and the like are just part of the game. As for whether or not it is a good thing, that will probably vary with taste and circumstance. But in any case, having a new wrinkle out there is a very welcome thing. Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Brecht -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100910/7c5fb260/attachment.htm>
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