[CAUT] Quick Hamilton voicing/new Fazioli

[Fortenberry, Kevin]

I still get stuff on the old list also.

I had some FANTASTIC results yesterday voicing a Baldwin Hamilton in one
of our small classrooms. Needed to do an emergency "bring the hammers down
out of the rafters" voicing so that one of our Opera profs could do a
quick jury in this room at the last minute. I decided to chuck up a #2
crewel needle in my battery powered dremel tool--about and inch/inch and
1/4 in length. (Big honking needle--I proceeded with MUCH, MUCH caution.)
I tried angel shot from several different angle, going straight down
through the shoulder and went all the way through to the other
shoulder--voicing on the side, etc. etc. (these may be the only hammers
known to man that need this type of POWER NEEDLING!!)  After a while I
developed a FAIRLY good routine & was able to bring the mid range down to
about where the bass was with PRETTY GREAT sound and evenness--and then
just brought the worst of the treble down to get a fairly good
progression. I think I am on to something here. We have like a KA-BILLION
of these Hamiltons here at Texas Tech. And like 90 % of them MUST BE
BROUGHT down and w/o spending a ton of time. I will do further
research--of course all voicing is somewhat experimental!

I have also been wanting to share about our INCREDIBLE new Fazioli 278
(the 9'2" one. Does not have the fourth pedal.) Our piano faculty is
particularly excited about this piano--as are so many here in the School
of Music. I LOVE tuning and voicing this piano. Of couse the voicing on
this piano is DIAMETRICALLY OPOSED to the Hamilton type above. I have
found that I really do LIKE filing the hammers with the narrow strips of
600 grip wet dry, 1000, grit and even 1500 grit--still put masking tape on
the back. For regular needling these hammer are a dream. They voice much
like the regular Renners, except VERY RESPONSIVE! There are several tricks
the guy from the piano dealer in New York showed me (actually Sujatri is
from Italy, and is part owner of the Clavierhouse dealer.), but Fred had
done a wonderful job of desribing the Fazioli methods. I am looking
forward to learning much more about this--and the lines drawn on the
hammers. Fantastic piano!

Kevin Fortenberry