As your Piano Tuner Wilmington DE , I frequently find that piano owners want more information about piano voicing. This is the second post regarding that topic. Previously we distinguished voicing from piano tuning, and we discussed that voicing involves changing the shape and/or density of the hammers in order to make the tone either brighter or more mellow. Any voicing procedure must be done on a recently tuned piano. The tone on a piano cannot be accurately evaluated unless the piano is perfectly tuned.
There are several situations when you would request us to evaluate your piano for voicing. The most common situation is when the tone is uneven; that is, when some notes are louder than others. This tends to occur because some notes are played more often than others. The hammers of the notes that are played more often tend to become compressed and hardened by repeatedly striking the strings. The hardened piano hammers, then, make those notes louder than the surrounding notes. If you are happy with the overall tone of your piano, but you notice that it is becoming difficult to play a beautiful line of music, because some notes are louder than others, then a relatively inexpensive adjustment will help your piano. Simply discuss the situation with us, and a recommendation will be given as to the appropriate technique. Most likely, the technique that will be recommended will be “needling” to soften the louder hammers, so that the volume and tone is even from note to note. For this procedure, we would use a “voicing tool”, which is a hand-held instrument with a few sewing machine needles secured at one end. The needles are carefully inserted and removed at specific locations on the louder hammers, so that the tone is softened without damaging the hammers.
Another situation is when the overall tone of the piano is brighter than you would like. This situation will be discussed in our next post.
If you have any questions about pianos, please let us know. We are your Wilmington DE Piano Tuning experts. We also serve the areas of Philadelphia, Eastern Shore MD and Southern NJ.
