If you have gone as far as breaking hammers, then you are just beating the hell out of it, that is abuse. I don't care wht kind of piano you have, that is just too far. Beaking hammers is nothing to be proud of.
I don't care wht kind of piano you have, that is just too far. Beaking hammers is nothing to be proud of.
I said what kind of piano (you) as in Ed. If you are as an accomplished pianist as you seem to be you probably aren't practising on a straight strung 1831 John Broadwood & Sons.
I also broke a hammer on own piano in Manila playing the Appassionata 1st mvt. (that bottom F),Ed
In my many years of playing piano, I have broken only one string, thankfully. When it occurs, we always remember what we were playing. In my case I broke the lowest E on my Baldwin Model L (6'3") playing Schumann's Novellette No. 1 in F. Many technicians theorize that a broken string likely had an original flaw embedded into it. For example, when the piano wire was being drawn, a tiny nick or impurity might have been present causing an inherent weak spot. (Rust forming on strings in a humid climate can cause problems over time too.) Given normal wear and tear plus the exact right circumstances, the string finally breaks. So it's rather mundane really. Similarly, it's generally believed that a string with a false beat in it has a built-in flaw in the wire as well. Anyway, once it pops you have the annoyance of waiting for the replacement string from the piano company, enduring the tuning instability while it stretches properly between the tuning and hitch pins (unless like me you have your own tuning hammer handy), and hoping all the while that once it finally settles, it'll sufficiently match it neighboring strings in tone quality. In my mind breaking a string proves absolutely nothing about the performer and is, in fact, a most unwelcome event! If the string broke, it was ready to break, plain and simple.
Topic: Broken String? 