[pianotech] Steinway A Bass String Rescaling

Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net
Fri May 22 19:44:08 MDT 2009


JUDE REVELY wrote:

> Dr. Sanderson did an experiment where he designed a set of strings with 0 
> inharmonicity. I was unfortunately not a primary aural witness to the 
> end result so my "observations" are hearsay. So I, too, ask myself, well 
> if this set of strings sounded so bad, what were the other factors (T,Z, 
> S, NT/H etc). I'm thinking that I can repeat the experiment for a few 
> unisons on one of my own pianos and let my own ears be the judge.

Yea, I've heard the story too. Some credibility might have 
been generated by at least publishing the scale, wouldn't you 
think? I'd also like to know how far outside reasonable limits 
in the other scaling parameters he went to do this. Meaning, 
that it wasn't necessarily the absence of inharmonicity (which 
I doubt is even possible) that was the problem, but the 
abandonment of everything else that makes a scale work to get 
it. Pending real information, I vote this urban legend into 
the "do not invoke" box.

Ron N


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