Tone really is an enigma, since it is a fully human, audible perception, which unlike touch, we can hear, feel, and get a time relationship. The piano is a percussion instrument. The hammer strikes the string. Tone is a combination of several factors which either all work well or not at all.
Here's what happens:
1) the actual striking of the hammer
on the strings or multiple strikes as in a chord
2) the vibration of the strings
after the hammer comes to rest
3) the vibration of the duplex
scale
4) the soundboard vibration or
amplification of the string vibration
5) the vibration of the instrument
case
6) use or non-use of soft, sostenuto,
and sustain pedals
7) the vantage point of the listener
8) the vibration of sound off the
lid of the case and the metal plate
9) the quality of air the sound
travels through
10) the technique of the keyboardist
or the lack thereof
11) human perception as to pitch,
duration, and harmonics
12) sympathetic vibrations of other
strings which were not played
13) and we can probably go on....
Tone is basically a human perception of the sound produced by the hammer's strike on the string in the piano. It can be dark, bright, mellow, brilliant, soft, loud, subtle, weak, non-existent, resonant, hanging, and a myriad of descriptors that we humans can comprehend. We hear tone, but really can't describe it in words as it is a true acoustic phenomenon. Tone is what pleases us when we play. Yamaha grands are known for their utter brilliance in the upper keys, while Steinway's are generally thought of as bright but not brilliant like a Yamaha. What pleases one, may not please another.
Nuclear physicists in tone can prove on an oscilloscope why a Steinway sounds like a Steinway and a Yamaha sounds like a Yamaha by their wave curves with the specific notes, but most of us go so what? I'm buying tone, not stereoptical wave curves...
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