Drop

[Bradley M. Snook]

Ed, yes, the "feel" part that I am talking about is the relative increase in
friction (i.e., resistance) when the drop is increased. What I have not yet
decided is what exactly I want: more or less resistance? But I don't
completely agree that it is not something that pianists will not feel. In a
very soft dynamic, some pianist are able to gain great control by
accelerating the key primarily from that friction point. So, some high level
pianist, some of the time, do play against/with that point of friction. When
is is not as prevelent, it is harder to find.

The checking that I am talking about is only with pp-ppp types of blows. My
preference is for the hammer to check regardless of the speed of the hammer;
I just think that things are safer that way.

>Ed:    Setting the springs higher than what it takes to lift the hammers as
fast
> as possible without feeling the recoil will gain you virtually nothing in
> repetition speed,(unless there is something else wrong that excessive
spring
> is making up for).

Hummm . . . I tend to set the springs so that there is a slight feel to the
'recoil.' I feel that the recoil is not felt in fast repetitive sections,
which is my primary reason for setting the springs tighter in the first
place. It would really only be a problem in slow softer types of passages,
but since the faster sections are far more prevalent in the concert
literature than the slower sections, I think that the pianist can/should
simply compensate for the slight recoil. But I do set my backchecks
excessively high. The distance between the hammer in check and the drop
position is relatively small. Because the hammer has a smaller distance to
travel, a slightly tighter spring will work just fine: the hammer doesn't
have the time to accelerate as fast.


>  Ed:  The amount of drop is the amount of resistance the pianist will have
to
> work through to achieve escapement.  The greater it is, the more of the
> keystroke's last bit of control must be done under spring pressure, and
this
> has an effect on how controllable let-off is.

So the question is: is this a good or a bad thing?

Bradley M. Snook