Voicing
Voicing is the process of needling hammer-felt to achieve a pleasant and consistent tone across the full range of the keyboard. When hammer-felt is too compact, notes will be loud and powerful, but they may also seem harsh, tinny, and lack sustain. When it is too soft, even harder strikes of the keys may produce an indistinct and lifeless sound.
In most circumstances, hammer-felt will gradually become harder over time, especially after frequent and heavy playing. However, some brand-new pianos feature very hard hammer-felt, with the expectation that it will be voiced to taste after purchase.
There is no regular schedule for this work, but signs that your piano may benefit from voicing include:
- A generally bright, tinny, or zingy sound which might be unpleasant to play for any extended time. You may find that even soft playing creates a brash sound, and that it’s difficult to play with any subtlety.
- A number of notes, in an otherwise even piano, which seem inconsistent with the rest as you play, either in volume or tone.
- Deep grooves in the hammers caused by impact from the strings. These grooves suggest highly compressed hammer-felt and often cause an overly bright tone. Ideally, such hammers should be refaced and regulated before voicing (see Regulation).
To ensure the most accurate and even result, voicing should be carried out soon after tuning. Furthermore, it’s a highly subjective process, so it often works well for the piano owner to be available throughout. That way, I can ask for their thoughts at each stage, and keep working until the desired result is achieved.
As such, it’s difficult to price voicing work in advance; fixing a few problem notes may take a two or three minutes, whereas a comprehensive session may take two or three hours. But as a guide, a significant improvement can usually be made within one hour when hammer refacing is not also required.
