Brass Tuning Finger...

[Yardbird47@aol.com]

Thanks, Ron, for picking up the subject again and I marvel at this new style
of CAD by ASCII. Your brass finger reminds me of a voicing toll handle I once
made, by filling a 4" section of 1.5" copper pipe with lead. The 3-needle,
swivel-head voicing  tool for the combo handle got sunk into that. I was
looking for a power tool mind you, for all those hot-press hammers. But
although it dropped with a vengeance on the hammer, I quickly tired of
lifting this voicing tool. What we need to penetrate a dense hammer shoulder
is force, and that you get either by arriving at the hammer with great speed
or with a heavy mass. I preferred not having to do work in both directions,
just on the way into the shoulders. I also felt that I could control it and
aim it better if gravity wasn't pulling so hard on it. My main voicing tool
now is the three needles epoxied to the end of a mute wire handle ("The
Caligraphy Tool" PTJ 9/94)
Your brass finger is  a novel idea. But I'm still not clear how it's oriented
in the hand when you strike.
<<I can hold this"tuning finger" in the palm of my hand and still play tenths
with relative ease.>>
Does the velcro loop keep it running across the width of your palm, so that
you turn your hand vertical and the finger sticks downwards from it? That's
like Steve Fairchild's bass hammer on a broom stick. But how else would it be
held in the striking mode? What Zen Reinhard (RPT Ann Arbor MI) does with her
racquet ball is to address how the shock of a test blow is absorbed. You say,
<<Mind you, I don't *bang* the finger on the keys.  I just sort of drop it to
the keys.>> But if a test blow has any value it must deliver force, and how
long you can continue to deliver test blows has to do with how well protected
your hand is against the "equal and opposite" to that force.
If the hand brings a cylinder down vertically, the grip which holds that
cylinder will return the shock of the impact into the hand. In exaggerated
form this will at the least wrench of the wrist, and if the "finger" is held
by a strap or "loop" around the hand, that strap will cinch up the hand in an
uncomfortable way. What the racquet ball does is to allow the hand to spread
around it in a way that distributes the shock over as wide an area as
possible. But there isn't much shock really to absorb because of the
bounciness of the ball. I tell you. Put that thing in your hand after a few
minutes of manual test blows, and with the same weight of forearm descending
on the key, the notes sound twice as loud. Zen warned me, "It's not hard to
break parts with this one." I haven't cracked any keys or popped any
hammershanks with it, but it has sure made damper wires jangle, which never
would with a manual blow. Best of all, it's effortless. The work is being
done by a very light but super-resilient sphere. And it'll sure keep the
fingers from being crippled.
Keep those cards and letters coming.
Mr. Bill (oh, no...)Ballard RPT, NH Chapt.