Modal Analysis

[Ron Nossaman]

>I haven't been following the modal discussion too closely, but a 
>solution to this did seem fairly easy.  Since the designer has a 
>pretty good idea what the downbearing of the strings on the bridges 
>is going to be, surely this downbearing could be reproduced with 
>seven or eight cheap hydraulic rams each having a horizontal bar 
>centred on a clevis at the end of the pistons and faced with rubber 
>strips.  The pressure could then be distributed in a very similar way 
>over the bridges.  No?
>
>JD

I don't know. There is a feedback from soundboard to string plane to
soundboard, like two opposing spring systems, in a strung piano that
wouldn't be there with just the rams or weights, or an unloaded board. It
seems to me that feedback would almost have to affect the soundboard
response patterns, given the obvious difference in produced sound that
string scaling changes make. 

Ron N