bridges/seating

[ETomlinCF3@aol.com]

To talk about bridge pins with strings that ride high I must chime in as to
confirm the opinion below.  I service many grands in... well ...Charismatic
....churches where not only the Spirit moves...but so do the strings.

Ed Tomlinson
Tomlinson Tuning and Repair




In a message dated 97-04-07 21:07:20 EDT, you write:

<<
 I have an unusual situation that may spread some light (or confusion,
 depending on how you look at it) on this subject.

 Ron Nossaman wrote, answering Marcel Carey of Sherbrooke, QC:
 >
 > NOTICE: The following is my OPINION (based on experience and logic), not
to be confused with,
 and modifyable ONLY by, FACT (or gooder logic).
 >
 Same goes for the situation I am about to relate....
 >
 > As far as tapping strings on the bridge, I think it's not a good practice.
I have heard
 > and read many times that strings will ride up on bridge pins and need to
be "seated" to
 > stop false beats. This is contrary to the laws of physics as I know them.

 The laws are different down here in Texas, especially during the Van
 Cliburn Piano Competition, held in Fort Worth every four years.  We
 noticed this phenomenon first in 1981 when Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, late
 Beethoven and (especially) Liszt were played about 12 hours a day by
 young, strong artists out to impress!

 > I don't think
 > it's possible for a string, with measurable positive bearing, to ride up a
pin (against
 > tension), slanted to force the string down on the bridge (against side
bearing), and
 > stay there until someone knocks it back down where it belongs.

 That's exactly what happens.  We had one Steinway D that was used in
 1981 by 78% of the competitors.  It was tuned and tuned and tuned
 constantly, so it was *very* stable as far as the tuning pin setting and
 string segment settling were concerned.  After a hard workout, when
 some unisons had drifted (only slightly, of course [;>, but
 understandably), Pris and I found that most of the time, the strings had
 been _knocked upwards_ on the bridge pins from the heavy playing.
 Lightly tapping the string down onto the bridge put the unison back
 virtually perfectly in tune.  Go figure!?!

 > The string noise most likely comes from a loose bridge pin.

 Nope...we had just rebuilt the piano and it had a new bridge with
 positively tight bridge pins.

 > Sometimes you don't have a choice in a concert situation where you have
 > to make it clean, and right now. Just remember to consider seating strings
on bridges to
 > be an emergency only procedure, not a daily practice.
 >
 It wasn't really an emergency situation, it was just the right thing to
 do for the occasion.  But it certainly should not be a daily practice,
 or even a normal practice each time the piano is tuned.  Ron is
 absolutely correct in his general assessment of this practice.  I just
 wanted you to know that strings DO move up on the bridge pin.

 And Ed Foote wrote:

 > I don't drive the
 > string into the bridge,  I lightly tap the string, in the speaking length,
 > downward and sideways into the center of the angle formed by the bridgepin
 > and the cap. It takes very little force

 Ed's description is very good.  Don't use a sledge hammer!  We even
 _lightly_ tap the string down onto the bridge surface also.

 Then Ron answered back:

 > I have talked to too many techs who do this with a lot more enthusiasm,
and
 >  on nearly every tuning. The point I didn't make but meant to is that it's
not a magic
 > bullet cure for loose bridge pins, mis-notching, etc.


 Absolutely right.  If bridge pins are loose - and it happens more often
 than we like to think, even in brand new pianos - this is not the
 correct solution.

 > It's also very definately not a
 > case of strings riding up on bridge pins!

 But, it _could_ be.  That's all I wanted to let everyone know.

 Joel Rappaport
 Round Rock, Texas >>