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How many high notes are not dampered on your piano?


Jazz+

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Musically, idealy where would you like the high notes without dampers to begin?

 

On Steinways it's the 21 highest notes, starting at E6, that do not have dampers. On my Mason & Hamlin it's the top 20 notes, starting at F6, are not dampered.

 

I trying to decide between either G6, F6 or E6.

 

My Roland SRX-11 dampers all the high notes so I've made a split at F#5/G6 and added sustain to the top 18 notes. I like the added realism.

Harry Likas was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book." Find 700 of Harry’s piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and jazz piano tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas

 

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Originally posted by Jazz+:

Musically, idealy where would you like the high notes without dampers to begin?

Nowhere. On acoustic pianos, this characteristic is more linked to lower cost and mechanism reduction than anything else, as those notes die very quickly anyway.

 

My Kurzweil also emulates this imperfection from G6 to C8 (18 notes), but I always use dampers on all 88 keys when I create custom acoustic piano patches. IMHO an ideal piano has 88 dampers.

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Mr. Busch is closer to the truth. Higher notes, shorter strings, less space. If dampers went all the way up, you'd have a hard time finding a place to stuff a rubber mute while tuning. But more because shorter strings means more stiffness and less sustain, so at some point dampers become unnecessary. The sympathetic vibrations of those open strings is an integral part of the piano sound. In fact, that's not enough sympathetic vibration. Most manufacturer do what Steinway calls a duplex scale. The segment of the treble strings behind the bridge is left undamped and rests on an aliquot bridge near the hitch pin.
--wmp
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