I will register my voice in favor of re scaling pianos, Steinways included. The only pianos I don't feel that are worth re scaling are the Baldwin grands designed by Conklin, but that is just a hunch. I have never really checked it out mathematically. There are hugh benefits to rescaling in the non bass sections as well. The most notable is the result you get when there is even tension through out the treble. Most scales have jumps that are really noticeable when the wire diameter changes. This non-uniform distribution would probably cause unpredictable nodes and boundaries on the vibrating board. The modes of vibration on any given board are hardly understood. Having non-uniform tension is just one element that can be controlled through proper rescaling. I once wrote a program in Qbasic to calculate a best treble scale that used a step function with the string gauge as the variable. It consisted of a only a few executing program lines. It tried each gauge of wire starting with the smallest and it calculated a value for tension for that gauge. Next, the program asked if this value was within, say, 5 lbs. of 160 lbs. if not it calculated a new value for tension using the next gauge size up. When the right gauge was supplied then it was selected and stored in an array for that note number. This first gauge value that supplied the correct tension was also the best choice for "inharmonicity". In short, the whole program went for the constant tension while inharmonicity was the second priority. I still have the program somewhere if anyone is interested I can email it as an attachment. ,.,.,,,.,,,,,,.,.,,,.,,,,,,,.,,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,, ,,,.,.,.,., Michael J. Wathen, RPT Phone: 513-556-9565 Piano Technician Fax: 513-556-3399 College-Consevatory of Music Email: Michael.Wathen@UC.Edu University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH 45221-0096 http://www.uc.edu/~wathenmj/
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