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Question: does voicing a piano to be more mellow and less bright also effect volume and projection? Can one get a softer more mellow sound without having the piano sound more muffled? Thanks.

Projection would be more of a function of soundboard capabilities. Volume and muffled would be the density of the hammer. Mellow would be the top part(tip) of the hammer. So yes, a hammer can be voiced to be mellow without sounding muffled to an extent.

-chris

Greetings,
Yes, yes, or maybe or no. It can go any way possible depending on where you are starting from.

Let's consider the perfect hammer. It will produce a very mellow tone at the softest play and a clangorous crashing note on the most forceful play. At all levels tone in between mellow and brilliance will be gradual and even. Thus the pianist can control dynamics with tone as well as volume/.
However, a perfect hammer in a recording studio has to be much harder and have far less range in tone, (too hard to mix the piano in as a track when it is too complex a range of tone).
And, the perfect hammer for a full size piano used to accompany singers may need to be less aggressive in tone than others.

If you have a hard, inflexible hammer and it is "voiced", you may actually get more volume and projection. It might be as "loud", but often a voicer can produce a fuller, bigger tone, as well as a gradient up to brilliance. Yes, as softer sound can be had without being muffled. It requires the voicer to leave a deeply resilient hammer with some firmness close enough to the strike point to add the highs needed for definition. An overly voiced hammer doesn't produce the highest partials, (overtones) in the string, even at the most forceful play. An under voiced hammer will perhaps be clear and mellow at soft play, but quickly become harsh as soon as you add some force.

Regards,

So the answer is: It depends.

What brand and type of instrument do you have?

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

Years ago I bought an early 2000s model Petrof P115 (46") studio upright for a pretty good price. I liked it a lot when I first got it. It was very mellow. I'd describe the tone as very warm, and mellow. It was a pleasant tone, and the Renner action felt good at my fingertips.

But after a while, when I'd want to play some hard-driving boogie-woogie on the Petrof, I could play the notes hard, and still got a soft, mellow tone. Maybe it was just my playing, or the kind of music I like to play, but after a while the mellow tone seemed too mellow for my taste. Not much attack, particularly in the mid and upper octaves.

I never attempted to voice the Petrof, and figured that was its voice, for better or worse. I kept the piano about a year or two and then sold it.

This is just my opinion here, but I think a piano can be voiced so that a really bright piano is less bright, or a really mellow piano is less mellow, but I don't think that any amount of voicing can change the inherent tone of a piano drastically. However, too much voicing can make the tone more mellow, and kill the attack/power at FFF.

Hammer voicing does intrigue me, however.

Rick

No, they are separate issues, unless the voicing is done only by needles. Voicing also has to do with hammer shape and weight. When a tech simply sticks a needle in the the top of the hammer, especially when it is directly under the string mark, it is going to produce a mellow and muffled tone. If you want power and projection, you need to regulate hammer weight and the size of the strike point. By dealing with hammer weight and shape, we can also alter how thick or thin the tone is. This all factors into volume and projection, in addition to the pianists ability to voice a chord.