Scaling

[Susan Kline]

Del, Ralph --

That hard, huh?

Really, if what you want is vibrato, all you need to do is to alter one
string of each unison. 

If you're willing to take a little time, instead of just pulling one lever,
you could alter each note, one at a time, by pivoting some kind of wedge
used in place of the front bridge pin on one string per note. Alternately,
there could be a separate rod just behind the capo, with notches to allow
two strings per unison to pass, which would shorten the third string. That
might be done gang-fashion, if one weren't too picky about the speed of the
vibrato.

Alternately, perhaps there could be a way to make one string have a wobbly
termination, like a loose bridge pin, on demand. 

I remember seeing a tuning idea on some instruments such as hammer
dulcimers or stringed instruments from India. In the back length of a
string there is a bead large enough to deflect the string (which runs
through it.) One can fine-tune the string by sliding the bead. I bet that
would work on pianos, in the tail  length. That way one could tune the
vibrato to whatever speed one wished. 

If anybody is smart enough to market this idea, they are smart enough to be
rich enough not to bother!

Well, we have almost a year to work it out ... is "keep on inventing" our
version of "keep on truckin'"?

Susan

P.S. Imagine how mad Mother Nature might be about this one! What arguments
about the speed of vibrato, and whether it should change for different
registers! <g>

-------------------------------------------------------------------
>ralph m martin wrote:
>
>> Del and Susan
>> Please allow me to offer an idea to solve the entire situation without
>> having to rely on a lot of engineering.
>>
>> Simply install a mechanism on the bridge that works like the sharping
>> levers  on a harp. You throw a lever of simple design and one string of
>> each unison is sharped just enough to creatre a 6.5 hz beat. This will
>> give the entire piano a lovely vibrato so that no one will know what
>> temperment you have used anyway.
>>
>> Don't try to be kind, Del...do you think my idea has any merit?
>>
>> Imagine what marketing could do for that piano?!!?
>>
>> Ralph Martin
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>
>Ralph,
>
>The idea may have artistic and marketing merit, but it would drive
engineering and
>manufacturing wild. Discounting the string termination problems that would
be introduced,
>consider the mechanical difficulties. Since each unison (don't forget that
through much of
>the scale there are going to be three strings that will each need one of
these devices) in
>the piano has a different length and/or string tension, each of these
devices is going to
>have to be designed for a specific string. To maintain unison tuning
consistency, the
>pitch of each individual string of each unison is going to have to be
tracked very
>precisely. The ensuing mechanical linkage would be something that only
Rube Goldberg's
>mother could love.
>
>Keep inventing...
>
>Del
>
>
>
Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com		

"What goes up must come down but what comes down often wants to go back up."
		-- Ashleigh Brilliant