Aluminum Wound Strings

[Frank Weston]

Thank you list.  I managed to pry off a small piece of winding, and it is
indeed iron.  I do still have my original question.  Who can duplicate
these strings?

For Del:

I think you are reading too much into my hesitance to attempt rescaling as
a one-shot job on a fine piano.  To state my position more clearly:

The bottom line for any piano is how it sounds.  The final arbiter of how a
piano sounds is the human ear.  There were many more well trained human
ears listening to this piano when the scale was designed than I would ever
be able to muster in my lifetime.  Rather than take the chance that
software and analysis given one chance could improve upon this scale, I
would rather go with the certainty that the original scale was pretty good.

>From what I know about scale design software, the major parameters
considered are tension, breaking strength of wire, various lengths,
materials, and inharmonicity of the whole combination.  We have recently
agreed that inharmonicity as such plays a very small role in tonal
properties of a piano.  Now, I must ask, if the only parameter remotely
related to tone that rescaling software considers is inharmonicity, how is
rescaling with software ALONE going to improve the tone of any piano?  To
get the desired results, one must listen to the piano, make adjustments,
and listen again.  I am unprepared to restring this piano more than once
just to see if I can make improvements in tone.  The old guys who "didn't
have very good tools to work with" had the opportunity to string and listen
to hundreds of pianos, and they listened with highly trained ears.  They
also operated in a very large and competitive market. 

Were I in the position of restringing hundreds, or even dozens of these
pianos, I would be tempted to try to improve upon the scale.  I do not
doubt that it can be done, and that you are doing it in your work.  I do
not doubt that rescaling software will get the scale designer much closer
on the first shot.  What I do doubt is that I, given a reasonable
expenditure of resources on this particular piano, have a reasonable
probability of greatly improving the scale.

If, of course, Del or anyone on this list has already rescaled and tested
(with good results) a Stieff model 28, I would be more than willing to
accept, and even pay a fee for the improved scale.

Highest regards,

Frank Weston

 > 
> By saying this, are you implying that nothing much has been learned about
how pianos work
> in the last 50 to 100 years? A position that I, for one, take exception
to.
> 
> I think you give the early designers a bit more credit than they deserve
when it comes to
> stringing scales. It's not that they didn't try hard, they did. It's just
that they didn't
> have very good tools to work with. Either in the mathematics they had
available or in
> their understanding of how the piano worked. Don't believe me? Just spend
some time with
> the book "Piano Tone Building." Or with some of William Braid White's
writing, or even
> Samuel Wolfenden -- two of the top men in the field at the time.
> 
> I agree with you on one point, however, no matter how good it is,
software by itself does
> not a good scale make. I've seen a lot of really bad "rescaling"
inflicted on otherwise
> descent pianos, but I've also seen and heard some really good modern
scales installed on
> older pianos. The computer is a marvelous tool, but it must be combined
with a good
> understanding of how string scales work and how they interact with the
rest of the piano.
> If it is, then the chances of improving on the original stringing scale
with just one shot
> are excellent indeed. Every stringing scale of every piano that comes
through our shop
> gets measured and the scale gets analyzed. So far, every one of them has
gotten a new
> stringing scale. Is each one the absolutely perfect scale for that piano?
Perhaps not. But
> they are always a dramatic improvement.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Del