SANTA BARBARA CHAPTER
April Meeting:
Date: Mon. 4/8/2024
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Piano Kitchen
430 Rose Ave.,
Santa Barbara
The Santa Barbara Chapter met on March 11 and changed our officer lineup a
little, with Charles Hudson stepping down as President and Kate Therrien
stepping in!
We discussed higher-level Guild business and dynamics and
committed to educating ourselves a bit about the upcoming elections.
Our
technical issues session was dominated by fun and strange encounters and
problems we couldn't quite resolve, ranging from broken Chickering brass plate
nuts, to a minor but growing plate crack, to a huge destroyed/missing piece of
lid polyester.
For our program, we staged a scenario in which a
basic/intermediate player needs and can appreciate a little more downweight
consistency, without needing to undergo a full/official weighing off and
balancing of the action/keys. The relatively quick and inexpensive solution,
proportional to the need/problem, was to use the Bolduc fulcrum tool (or
similar), set at an acceptable downweight in the 45-50g range near the middle of
the keyboard, to identify the worst offenders: those keys needing attention. A
key lead is placed/moved along the top of the keystick until the desired
downweight/position is found, and marked as long as there is available space for
a lead to be added there.
We noted that changing the downweight also
affects the upweight, which we like to be in the 20g area. Also important to
remember that gram weight at the hammer is 5-7x at the front of the key, and
that most weight inconsistency issues can be resolved by careful/smart hammer
choices, in cases where hammer replacement is taking place.
Our next
meeting will be Monday, April 8 at 7pm at the Piano Kitchen in Santa Barbara,
where our program will be a system and process for setting and adjusting upright
damper timing and letoff outside the piano, based on samples set in the piano.