Hearing Aids and Voicing

[Les Smith]

Hi, John and Danny.

One word of caution about attempting to needle those hammers, however
slightly. Look closely at the hammer flanges. I believe that you will
find that they are plastic. You know, the kind that crumble and break
when you exert the slightest bit of pressure on them. MAKE SURE that
you support those hammers firmly and carefully when trying to needle
them, because those flanges will break very easily. I believe that
both the wippen and damper flaanges are also plactic. Elbows, too.
If you're concerned about being able to voice the hammers down by
needling without breaking fragile action parts that can be a real
PITA to replace, you might want to consider applying a softening so-
lution such as fabric softner and water be means of a hypo-oiler to
the hammers and play it safe.

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net






On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Danny Moore wrote:

> jpiesik@arinc.com wrote:
>
>        I reshaped hammers on a Poole 1940ish s
(yup, I did).
>   <<snip>>  I talked to her after the shaping, and she says it is now
>   too harsh/bright for her.  <<snip>>   Then she mentioned her hearing
>   aids - she's 72.  <<snip>>  Should I turn those hammers into mashed
>   potatoes to please her?  Something tells me to please the client,
>   but something else tells me to avoid turning the piano into a fluff
>   ball. . .
>
> John,
> I'd say you've made an astute evaluation of the problem . . . most
> hearing aids begin to roll off the lows pretty radically below 200 Hz,
> which is not very low on a piano scale.  We have to guess that she has
> sensorineural hearing loss, probably common presbycusis (no, that's not
> the church she goes to) since they are attempting to correct it with
> hearing aids.  Presbycusis is where the cochlea (little hair cells) in
> the inner ear begin to die and are not replaced as a result of the aging
> process.
>
> Yeah, I know you didn't ask for a biology lesson; bear with me, it is
> relevant.  Usually, the high frequency content above 4000 Hz goes even
> before the low frequency content.  Evidently, her hearing aids are
> amplifying the high frequency content and she has not lost all
> sensitivity to these frequencies.
>
> You're right, she's hearing too much of the upper partials and not
> enough fundamental and lower partials.  Since it's likely that she has
> lost some of her ability to hear the higher frequencies, I suspect you
> won't have to soften the hammers as much as you would if YOU were
> listening for the upper partials.  Most likely, a slight needling will
> be all that's required.  The brightness will probably disappear for her
> long before it does for you.  I would think that you would want her with
> you as you begin voicing, after all, you've already made it sound good
> to you, now you've got to discover what sounds good to her.
>
> Bottom line:  Make her happy.  At her age, she'll never buy another
> piano and I'm sure her little spinet gives her as much pleasure as
> anything in her life.  It certainly doesn't matter about resale value or
> what the next owner might think.  If you make the piano sound like she
> wants it to, you will forever be her hero.  If you don't, you'll be that
> "young kid (even if you're 60 years old) who came in here and made my
> piano sound like something Little Richard would play."
>
> Happy fluffing. . .
>
> Danny Moore
> Houston Chapter
>
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