----- Original Message ----- From: "John Delacour" <JD@Pianomaker.co.uk> To: <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: September 20, 2001 3:09 AM Subject: Re: 1 string, 2 strings, 3 strings or more > > As to holding up pre-1914 to reverence, there was a very rich soil in those > days for your 'thinkers' to flourish in and a vast resource of skilled men > working in an age dominated by mechanical contrivances. I'm sure > worthwhile design improvements are possible in 2001 as well as some radical > changes in basic components, but maybe there were good ideas around in > 1960, in 1970 - I've not seen any evidence of it. > Obviously, the years from roughly 1860 to the early 1920s were years of experimentation and development for the modern piano. But these development was almost entirely in the mechanical or structural design of the instrument, not in scaling. There was certainly a variety of string layouts and configurations tried and discarded, but this does not good scaling make. Even though there was much talk about logarithmic scaling through the tenor/treble section of the piano--Wolfenden wrote of it in 1916--it was applied only in part. No one, to my knowledge, got the low tenor even close to right. And--at least as far as I know--the idea of log scaling never got to the bass section until I did it in the 1980s. The excuse I most often hear is that the mathematics necessary to develop the bass scaling was not developed until the 1950s. This might excuse the builders working earlier than 1950 but not those following. With these math tools it didn't take all that much time even with just the slide rule (relative to designing the rest of the piano) to develop a reasonable bass scale. With the availability of inexpensive computers and off-the-shelf spreadsheets--even the availability of ready-made programs written especially for string scale calculations--it is truly incredible that we still see the obsolete scaling principles of 1900--in some cases nearly exact copies of those used in 1900--being applied to pianos that are supposedly being 'designed' today. The concept of creative R&D seems nearly dead in our industry today. And, with its death has gone the evolution the product vital to the industry's survival. Del Delwin D Fandrich Piano Designer & Builder Hoquiam, Washington USA E.mail: pianobuilders@olynet.com Web Site: www.pianobuilders.com
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