Does anyone know of a good book on piano hammers? I would like to know more about them before selecting a set for my grand. I also want to learn about voicing techniques. Is there a good book on both topics, or would I be better off with two, separate books on the two separate topics? I have run across a number of seemingly applicable book titles, just in the Schaff catalog alone. But you know what they say, "You can't judge a book by its cover." I'd say that applies to my situation. Would much prefer to get assurance that a book does actually provide good, usable information from someone who's read it, before putting the time and money into it.
Thank you,

On the Renner USA website, you can download a pretty extensive voicing brochure. That would be a start.

Jurgen,
Thank you. I have downloaded it. I hope to read it in the next day or so. I imagine (hope) that what it has to say will apply to voicing most hammers, and not just the Renner hammer.

Still looking for more info on hammers themselves.
Thank you again.

You may want to check Ari Isaac's website as well. He is very knowledgeable about hammers and their relationship to strings etc.

www.isaacpiano.com

You might want to get this book that's the subject of a thread at the top of the piano technician's page here at Piano World. It's got lots of useful information in it. It isn't a rip-roaring adventure story, but there is good information about how piano hammers are/were made and voiced, and why they sound the way they do. It's really interesting stuff. Great footnotes by Del on the subject.

http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/3/2067.html

Dan Russell at Kettering University on hammers - good reading.
http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/hammers.html
Don Hall from Sacramento State university on hammer string interaction http://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectures/contents.html
Ari Isaac has a video cd of his hammer class that may be available for purchase - ask him.
I have attended many classes at PTG conferences about hammers and voicing - too numerous to mention - a wealth of information.
You may consider joining the PTG, going to meetings and finding a mentor - after all of the reading is done you will need a huge amount of experience and a mentor is extremely valuable.

Gene,
No doubt, joining the PTG would be a great help here. I do attend an occasional meeting with the local branch. They welcome me. However, because of a strange issue at my day job, I may have to move to a different state soon. If that happens, I'd have to drop my piano work for who knows how many months, making it better for me to hold off on starting my yearly membership till that is over with. I am trying to resolve this situation at work soon. The indicision on my employer's part is a bit maddening. It makes it difficult to plan anything.

Thank you for the suggestions. I will check them out.

Later,