Modartt user forum » Pianoteq user forum » Useless question:Does a hammer hit a string as a key hits the keybed?
Are these two events simultaneous, so that the whack comes from both the hammer hit and the keybed hit at once?
Or does it vary a lot with different weights of strokes? And for some strokes, there's no keybed sound at all, since we don't press the key all the way to the bottom, or we touch it so lightly that there's no percussive sound?
Jake, I just posted this in the other thread, that makes me think at the excellent Askenfelt lectures, for example
http://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectur...asure.html
that you mentioned once in the thread
http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic.php?id=471
Are these two events simultaneous, so that the whack comes from both the hammer hit and the keybed hit at once?
Or does it vary a lot with different weights of strokes? And for some strokes, there's no keybed sound at all, since we don't press the key all the way to the bottom, or we touch it so lightly that there's no percussive sound?
Hello Jake,
Perhaps I can help clarify what happens regarding a real piano hammer hitting a string, and its relationship to the key front bottoming out in the keybed.
If you have access to a real grand piano, try this for yourself: Verrrry slowwwly, depress any key of your choice. Not quite before the key front bottoms out, you will feel a little "friction" in the action. This friction is where the so-called "escapement" dislodges itself from the hammer shank, and the shank is otherwise free to propel itself towards the string under its own momentum.
If there were no such thing as an escapement mechanism, then the direct mechanical linkage of the the key to the hammer shank, to the string would have the effect of the hammer sticking against the string and prevent the string from vibrating freely.
Once you convince yourself, that the hammer shank "escapes" from the rest of the mechanical part of the action, then you will realize that the hammer felt actually hits the string "before" the key front bottoms out in the keybed.
The problem with most people believing this, is that piano keys are usually depressed rather quickly, and the sounding of the string seems to coincide with bottoming out of the key upon the keybed. In reality, however, the hammer strike occurs before the key bottoms out in the keybed -- in those cases that you play actual notes on a piano.
Back to the simple exercise of verrrry slowly depressing a piano key, if the key is slowly pressed down to the point of the escapement taking place, you will most likely cease pressing down the key (at least for a short while). If done slowly enough, the escapement will simply "slip out" from under the hammer shank, but in doing it so slowly, the hammer does not have enough momentum to strike the string.
But, in normal piano playing, such that you depress keys fast enough to hear a musical sound, the hammer does hit the string slightly before the key bottoms out.
I hope this helps explain what you are experiencing.
Cheers,
Joe