Aggressive players

[McNeilTom@aol.com]

I used to have several church customers who were breaking bass strings on
studio pianos.  One was a Baldwin Hamilton (2 of them in one church), one was
a Yamaha, and one was a Kawai.  I couldn't figure it out, since I seldom
encountered broken strings on these same pianos in hard school/conservatory
use.  I decided to visit these churches during services.  It turned out that
the common denominator was loud _tremolo_ playing.  Then I recalled what a
percusionist had once taught me: a large vibrating body (tam tam, Chinese
gong) will be much louder when played moderately in drum-roll fashion with a
soft mallet than if given a mighty whack,  with a hard or soft mallet.  It
seems that maximum energy cannot be imparted all in one blow.  It makes sense
to me that similar rules may prevail with piano bass strings.

In two of the cases (Baldwin, and the Kawai I think) I solved the problem by
installing a whole new set of bass strings made with the next size thicker
core wires throughout.  I suppose this increased inharmonicity by increasing
stiffness and lowering tension; if so, the effect was not troublesome.  In
both cases, it put an end to the string breaking problems, at least for a
couple years 'til I got out of contact with those pianos.

- Tom McNeil -
Vermont Piano Restorations