Piano Voicing
Piano Voice ~ Adjusting Piano Tone
Voicing is the process of regulating and improving piano tone. As pianos age the hammer felt becomes harder and worn, and the strings stretch and ride up on the bridge pins. The strings become wavy, distorted and produce less resonance and the hammers produce brassy overly bright sound.
When a piano is in tune, if you play a mellow soft note with a bright brassy loud note it sounds inharmonic. Many times I have followed piano tuners who have done a decent job tuning the customers piano, however the customer was complaining. After examining the piano, it became apparent the problem was poor voicing and not poor tuning. A piano that is in poor voice will sound oddly inharmonic even with good tuning.
Technically, any adjustment that alters piano tone is voicing, such as brushing the hammers, stretching, straightening and seating the strings or needling the hammers. When the topic of piano voicing is discussed, usually the conversation is about adjusting the hammers. If you Google “Piano Voicing” you will find many results and tuners offering hammer needling as voicing. However if you Google “Piano String Voicing” the only page you will probably find is the one you’re currently reading. I am aware of only a handful of piano technicians ~ the best in the United States ~ who incorporate string voicing into their service.
I have known of customers who have purchased new pianos or purchase expensive modifications to their pianos when a good string voicing along with hammer voicing would have accomplished the same result and they could have saved thousands of dollars. I include string adjustment in my piano voicing routine because it has a wonderful affect on the resonance and clarity of piano tone.
String voicing restores the resonance and removes most of the waviness and distortion, and hammer voicing evens out the tone. It is truly amazing how much better a piano sounds after it has been voiced.
Piano voicing involves:
Restoring the resonance and clean tone to piano strings
( Can be preformed on vertical pianos but usually on grands )
( Must be preformed before tuning )
- Stretching, straightening and seating the strings on the bridges
- Leveling the strings around the agraffes and capo
Restoring the evenness of piano tone by adjusting the hammers
( Preformed on either grands or verticals )
( Must be preformed after tuning )
- Softening overly hard hammers
- Brushing hammers
- Needling to remove inconsistent and uneven tones