Rocking bridges

[Ron Nossaman]

>Richard, I think if this discussion is going to be at all useful to 
>anyone, we must simplify the issue as much as possible. To be frank, 
>"playing a key" could open a whole new can of worms because it would 
>entail so many imponderables, such as the impact of the hammer, the 
>stiffness of the string etc. and things would get even more muddied. 
>Besides, I can't think of a reliable test along those lines and I'm 
>not sure anything could be shown for wither party if I could.

What playing the key would show, with proper instrumentation, is whether or
not the soundboard moves before the bridge. I think it's quite important,
but haven't the means to measure it. And I fail to see that the discussion
thus far has been useful to a living soul. 



>Let's get the problem of the mobility of the bridge clear once and 
>for all.  I have already, for the time being, conceded the 
>unprovability of my hypothesis that the soundboard moves the bridge 
>and not vice versa, though RN seems not to have read that and is 
>still baying for blood, so that gets one red herring off the slab.

Thank you, at last. So it is your personal theory after all, unsupported by
quotable publication. If attempting to hold you to the same standards to
which you hold me is "baying for blood", then you've found me out again.


 > I 
>have also, of course never doubted the mobility of the 
>bridge/soundboard (how could one?!).  

Yet you were quite sure that immobilizing a bass bridge with a trestle
underneath and weight on top would still allow quite satisfactory piano
tone. I trust that is still your opinion? 


>To put it at its simplest, Robin and I insist that sound is 
>propagated in the piano in precisely the way that sound is propagated 
>everywhere else in this universe and Ron says that there is a special 
>law applying to pianos, which involves "sort of ripples" and things 
>like that.  So far as I can tell, both Ron O and Del think similarly, 
>so they may be onto something.

At the risk of interrupting such a fine momentum of martyrdom, there's
nothing special or exclusive about the physics of pianos, nor, as is the
case in progressively shorter intervals, can you show me the quote where I
said there was. The same physics that apply to everything else in the known
universe apply to pianos as well. Why, after all the discussion about the
causes of these effects, do we have to continually return to the beginning
as if all this discussion never happened? Is it to erase the past where
something was impossible, preposterous, ignorant, and utterly ridiculous
and is now perfectly obvious and has never been disputed? And how does this
manage to produce these claims you continue to say I've made and make them
appear in the record?

There are a whole lot of moving targets in this discussion besides the
bridge and soundboard.
Ron N