At 2:48 PM -0800 12/22/01, Robert Wilson wrote: >Overdamping >was the standard piano action type in those days. You >find a lot of variations where different designs were >tried and discarded. The birdcage was the norm and >eventually was overtaken by the underdamper. Not so. It varied according to the maker's preference. Erard, Broadwood, Schiedmayer and Kirkman never made an overdamper so far as I know, and though Bechstein was a latecomer, neither did he. The underdamper action either preceded the overdamper or developed simultaneously. I think it's easy to get a biassed view in England, where overdampers had a pretty long run. JD
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