Seating/false beats

Ron Nossaman nossaman@southwind.net
Wed, 16 Apr 1997 21:27:55 -0500 (CDT)


Hi Susan,

I've been wondering myself if a hard blow CAN drive a string up a bridge=
 pin, or if it's exclusively a humidity swing thing. Everyone has=
 automatically assumed this to be the case, but is it? I have observed a=
 dramatic drop in pitch with a hard blow as the string renders through the=
 stagger, and a tuned string creeping sharp as it is pulled back through=
 from the tail if it was pounded in too hard and not set well. It seems to=
 me that a string rendering through the bridge would tend to seat itself by=
 virtue of downbearing once the stagger friction is overcome and the string=
 is sliding. You can pound a string flat (pitch <G>) and have it come back=
 up somewhat (I've seen it in about octave 6, where all the weird stuff=
 happens) without touching the tuning pin at all. If the string has moved=
 THROUGH the bridge pins, wouldn't downbearing pull it down too? If a=
 pianist CAN unseat strings it would pretty much have to trash the unison=
 tuning. Hmmm... Interesting, Holmes. Got any solid evidence or deductive,=
 inductive, reductive, whatever, musings  either way?=20


Regards, Ron Nossaman




At 05:24 PM 4/16/97 -0700, you wrote:
>One small question keeps occurring to me as I read this thread:
>
>If, as seems possible, hard blows are enough to cause the strings to ride=
 up
>on the bridge pins, and stay there, is it a good idea to reseat them?=20
>
>Would it be better to consider who is going to play the piano next? What if
>the next performer is heavy handed, and will drive them right back up? Will
>a pianist's unseating them trash our unisons at the same time? When we do
>whole-hearted test blows, do we drive them back up ourselves? What happens
>to the bridge top and pins when we seat -- unseat -- seat, over and over?
>
>Carry on, list ... all cogitations gratefully accepted.
>
>Susan Kline
>skline@proaxis.com
>P.O. Box 1651,
>Philomath, OR 97370
>
>Murphy's out there ... waiting ...
>
>
 Ron Nossaman




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