Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
9
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There Are in Reality Not More Than Four or Five Different Degrees of Force
Which Are Produced by the Pianist in Striking the Keys of a Piano, and These
Same Degrees of Force Can Be Duplicated by the Pneumatic of the Player
"Touch," that old bogy, is never well dissolved
into its native smoke before it has bobbed up
again, all ready to scare another nervous one.
Musicians in the United States have, perhaps,
given less attention of a critical kind to the
player-piano than have their European col-
leagues, largely because the trade here has been
too blind to see the advantage of really co-oper-
ating with the musical profession. Moreover,
the advent of the reproducing player and the
popularity of that type of instrument have tem-
porarily overshadowed the matter of the player-
piano's capacity for personally-controlled musi-
cal expression. Yet, in fact, there are several
large producers of player-pianos and player
mechanism who insist that it is easy and profit-
able to stick to the foot-driven player. Their
meed of commercial success seems to justify
the statement.
The foot-driven player is the backbone of
the industry and as such must not be neglected,
but rather continually refined and improved. As
a matter of such possible improvement the fol-
lowing remarks on the subject of the "touch"
capacity of the player mechanism are subjoined.
The Touch Superstition
Of all the superstitions that the musical world
has ever entertained, the superstition of touch
control on the piano is perhaps the most per-
sistent; it is certainly the most wrong-headed.
Ten minutes devoted to a mechanical study of
the piano action would convince any intelligent
person that pressing the key of a piano is ex-
actly like pressing the trigger of a pistol. One
is setting in motion a train of mechanical effects
which result (in both cases) in the production
of a sound. The finger pressure on the piano key
is almost as indirectly related to the string
sound as the pressure on the trigger.of the pistol
is to the report of the exploding Bpttridge. The
key does indeed lift the hammer up very closely,
to the string, but it does not press the hammer
against the string. What it does is to impart,
through its finger-impelled motion, such momen-
tum to the hammer that the latter, upon its dis-
engagement from the control of the key at the
moment of let-off or escapement, is carried to
the string and strikes it with a rebounding blow.
Hammer Velocity
This being the case, as may at once be per-
ceived by examining the action of the piano, it
follows that the only control th^t the finger of
the pianist, through the key, can exercise over
the operations of the hammer is in respect of
the speed of the hammer's travel to the string
and the length of time during which the damper,
through the key being held down, is permitted
to remain away from the string. All the argu-
ment on the part of the pianist that he exerts
any more definite control may be dismissed in
face of the plain facts relating to the mechanical
motion of the piano action; facts open to the
investigation of all.
This being the case, it further follows that
the pianist's touch must obtain all its varied ef-
fects by a combination of hammer velocity, dura-
tion of damper-lift and grouping of tones in
phrases. One does not deny the effects; one
only denies the superstitions that have gathered
around the manner of producing them. The
pianist, indeed, has half a dozen sorts of touch
methods, which he uses as his instinct prompts,
from moment to moment. He calls these by
various names, such as weight touch, finger-tip
touch, wrist touch, fore-arm touch, whole-arm
touch, and so on. But in fact, all of these,
mechanically speaking, are so many physical
methods applied for the purpose of varying
hammer velocity. They cannot do more than
this, save in respect of their time relations inter-
acting with other adjacent tones. You can hold
the key down so long as you please and by skil-
ful manipulation of this prolong the sound of
certain tones. You can skilfully arrange the
grouping of tones, so as to phrase expressively
and beautifully, producing the effect of contrast-
ing tone colors, etc. You can get, indeed, dif-
ferent tone colors; but you always get them
through control of hammer velocity and time
relations. That is the plain and simple fact,
which nothing can refute.
The Wippen
Now, if we leave the key and turn to the pianp
action, what do we see? The action effectively
begins at the wippen and it does not matter
whether this rests directly on the back of the
key, or indirectly through an interposed abstract,
dowel or other prop. That is merely a matter
of the size of the piano. The pianist's touch
affects the wippen and the wippen controls the
hammer. Therefore if you can affect the wippen
as the key affects it, you can do what the finger
does through the key.
How does the key affect the wippen? Ob-
viously by imparting to it a motion in the arc
of a circle, which arc is carefully calculated by
the action maker and requires that the contact
point between the two elements be set with
equal care. Given the wippen describing the
calculated arc, and the piano action will per-
form its duties rightly, responding to the greater
or less key-velocity produced by the finger of
the pianist operating upon the key.
Now since the hammer performs all its func-
tions through its speed of travel, it follows that
the pianist's finger on the key can have only the
same effect upon the latter; namely of imparting
greater or less speed. Therefore, whatever will
impart to the wippen the same speed of travel,
through the same arc, as the travel of the key
imparts, will do the same work as the key. If,
furthermore, the velocity variations possible to
the key are possible also to.th^otBe,t assumed
operating agent, then all that tfi^KjjT\:an permit
the pianist's fingers to do, ifi respect of the
actual operation of pressure to actuate the ham-
mer, can'be done by the other agent.
The Pneumatic
This other agent,
g , in our case,*is^^
, ^ ^ course the
pneumatic of the player actioifT"iA > is obvious
that the contact of the pneuma'tfe ^Un* the wip-
pen of the piano action can be arranged, even
if one does not always find it so in practice, so
as to cause the latter to describe an arc of the
same number of degrees as it describes under
the impulse of the key. Suppose this to be done,
ai in every good player installation should hap-
pen as a matter of course, then the pneumatic
becomes the key of the player; operated by the
air finger, just as the ordinary key of wood
and ivory is operated by a flesh and bone finger.
The remaining question, therefore, is as to
whether the variations in hammer velocity pro-
ducible through the finger on the ordinary key
are also producible through the air finger on the
pneumatic key. The answer to this can, of
course, only be found through indirect analysis;
but to that extent a correct answer may be ob-
tained.
The velocity of the collapse of the pneumatic,
which is parallel in action and effect to the
velocity of travel of the key, varies directly as
the height of the vacuum induced in the chest
of the pneumatic stack through the operation
of the bellows. Given a carefully designed bel-
lows-system and it 'becomes possible to imagine
as many vacuum levels as the speed of travel
of the bellows exhausters can be varied. By
practice, the player-pianist can learn to pedal in
many different ways, all producing individual
speeds of travel of the bellows. Each of these
individual speeds is under the command of the
player-pianist at all times, provided his mechan-
ism be good enough and his own skill great
enough. It is wholly a matter of design and of
skill; not at all a matter of limitation through
defect in principles.
If one imagines a control over vacuum de-
signed to furnish a constant 1 maximum level
through a power-driven apparatus, with a gov-
ernor operated by the foot or hand, it is obvious
that the number of possible levels of vacuum
obtainable at any moment would be theoretically
illimitable and actually very great. Hence also
the number of possible hammer velocities would
4|f equally great.
Varying the Velocity of the Key
At this point we must consider one very sig-
nificant fact. It is that in reality, when the mat-
ter is subjected to precise test, it is found that
the pianist's actual mechanical ability to vary
the velocity of the key, and therefore of the ham-
mer, is much less than has been generally sup-
posed. Such tests as have been made tend to
show that not more than four, or at the most
five, actual recognizable strengths of blow can
be produced by the pianist; and so one is forced
to the plain conclusion that it is the duration of
the sostenuto, the use of the damper pedal, and
the grouping of tones in phrases that supply the
remainder of the "touch" feeling the pianist and
his hearers obtain. And it is probably fair to
say that this remainder is more than half the
aggregate of sensations that go to make up the
complex.
The pneumatic action itself, therefore, comes
off with a clean bill of health. Practical experi-
ence leads one to believe that it is at the very
extremes of pianissimo and fortissimo that the
difference between air and finger are marked.
It is not so easy as it might be to gain pneu-
matically a very light pianissimo on a single
isolated tone. One may instance the first oc-
tave in the bass, and the following arpeggios,
in the first bar of the Adagio of the Moonlight
Sonata. This is hard to get on most players.
Yet the difficulty is purely a matter of design
and would probably disappear at once if studied
practically.
It is a matter of bellows-design
pure and simple. The question of fortissimo is
the same, plus, however, the parallel questions of
motor-drag and area to be exhausted in the
vacuum chest. Nevertheless, though a pianist,
hitting with all his might, can probably strike a
harder blow than can the player, the defect is
not insuperable by any means.
Touch Defects and the Music Roll
The responsibility of the music roll for any
apparent touch defects is of course potentially
enormous; but the subject is too large to be
taken up here. It need only be remarked, in
passing, that the so-called "hardness" of player
touch is very largely a matter of faulty note
grouping; which in turn is a matter to be con-
sidered by the music roll makers. It is vitally
important to the player-piano, but must be
treated in another place.
The pneumatic, however, requires no apology,
nor is there aught about it that renders attain-
ment of the finger keys' capacities either impos-
sible or necessarily even difficult.