Action
The action of these small instruments is known as the "English single" and is unusually simple (for instance, it is far simpler than the original piano action as invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori.) It consists of a small "sticker" simply pushing up on a hammer, while a rod passing through the hitch pin plank lifted up a damper lever hinged from a rail attached to the spine. The action is illustrated below.
Action parts:
- key; the portion pressed by the player is on the far right
- jack; a wire with leather stud on top, known by the workmen as the "old man's head"
- whalebone rear guide, projects from the end of the key, works in a groove to keep the key steady
- hammer; strikes the string to produce sound
- whalebone jack, called the mopstick
- damper; when in lowered position stops the sound of the string
- whalebone damper spring
Read more about this topic: Johannes Zumpe
Famous quotes containing the word action:
“You mustn’t look in my novel for the old stable ego of the character. There is another ego, according to whose action the individual is unrecognisable.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Wherever you see a man who gives someone else’s corruption, someone else’s prejudice as a reason for not taking action himself, you see a cog in The Machine that governs us.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)