Bridge notch anomaly morphing into voicing

John Dorr a440@bresnan.net
Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:56:55 -0700


List,

I'd like to thank everyone for their thoughtful posts.  I've printed them all 
out and I've learned from all of your responses, even those that didn't read 
the post that carefully! <G>  [As far as that goes, I probably shouldn't have 
written the word "zingy"; a better descriptor might have been "nasal".]

I'll be revisiting that piano soon and trying my hand at some more voicing. 
 The client is a friend of mine, and she called me over and said a different 
note sounded "out of tune", which really wasn't.  The unisons were solid and 
the note checked out aurally every way I knew to test.  But the hammers are so 
hard that when I soften one or more slightly, another neighbor pokes its 
"nose" in there, sounding harsh by the NEW comparison.  The piano has a nice 
clear, somewhat bright tone in its nicest notes, but the ones that are 
annoying remind me of the worst of the Young Changs, if that makes any sense. 
 (Not all Young Changs are that way, of course, but the ones that need help 
sound "nasal" to me.)

Maybe you voicers out there could give me a few ideas on how to approach this 
circumspectly.  Start with string leveling/hammer mating and string seating? 
 Steam? (how to?)  Right to the needles?  Pick an octave, dial in a few notes, 
learn from there and spread the treatment?

I'm going to do this one for free because she's a friend of mine and I don't 
expect to "beat flat rate" (as we used to refer to it when I was an auto 
mechanic!)  I just want to put my foot in the waters gently and learn without 
doing anything that's irreversibly tragic!

You guys are great.  Thanks again.

John Dorr, RPT2B (lol)
Helena, MT


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