What's all this I hear about Inertia ?

[Paul McCloud]

Greg Graham wrote:
" Maybe key bending and hammer shank bending can be made to work with the
performer to whip the hammer to higher velocity than a rigid lever would?"  

This very point is made by Don Mannino at a presentation to our chapter in
San Diego.  He pointed out that some notes may reach a saturation point,
due to excess rigidity of the hammer shank.  Just like golf clubs which are
flexible can make the ball go faster/farther because the shaft straightens
out as it hits the ball, like a kind of whipping action.  (Don- help me out
here).  He showed how to thin the shank by scraping some wood off the
underside with a pocket knife.  With his high speed videos, the
presentation was a real eye opener.  You could actually see the flexing
that was going on as parts were stressed by extremely fast and hard playing
(harder and faster than a human is capable of.

Paul McCloud
San Diego

Paul McCloud
Service Technician for PianoSD.com
www.pianoservsd.com 
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