[pianotech] Pitch Change (was: Grey market pianos, seasoned pianos, etc.)

William Monroe bill at a440piano.net
Sat Apr 3 11:59:08 MDT 2010


Hi Gerald, List,

Having sifted through the archives.........  ;-]

OK, so my memory did serve.  Here's an excerpt from Ric Brekne's posting of
the math that shows resultant pitch changes due to rise & fall of a
soundboard.  This shows minimal effect on pitch due to soundboard
deflection.  Here's a link to the archives as well with the thread, "
Soundboard Deflection and Pitch Change / was Downbearing."

https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/2006-August/thread.html#194422

William R. Monroe




Ric wrote:

.............Let me illustrate..given the following, and by all means check my
figurings... (for the moment disregard the width of the bridge and deal
in simple triangle trig)


- an undeflected string tension of 160 lbs.
- string diameter of 0,8 mm.
- front length of 50 mm.
- back length of 25 mm.

This yields a front length frequency of roughly 4248.88 Hz.  f = SQRT((T
* 398 *10^6)/(L^2d^2))


If you then deflect this string 1 mm upwards you get a string deflection
angle of a whopping 3.46 ¤,  a downwards force of 9.59 lbs, and a
frequency of 4248.98 hz. Thats only a change of 0.106 hz.... at note 88

or there abouts.  Even a 2 mm deflection would'nt increase the frequency
of the string more then 0.42 hz and that would at the same time cause a
string deflection angle of 6.87 ¤ !! and a downbearing force of just

over 19 lbs... for just one string ! You'd be quickly over 3000 lbs of
total downbearing force on the soundboard...

If these figures are correct... then clearly soundboard deflection can
nearly be ignored when it comes to pitch changes.



On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net> wrote:

> Gerald Groot wrote:
>
>> I have read what has already been written in this thread, currently.  Ron,
>> I'm not going to sift through the archives.  The dissusion has been and
>> still is being presented now.  I'm merely adding to it as you are giving
>> my
>> current thoughts on the matter again, as you are.
>> Have YOU had the time to do all of these measurements yourself?  If so, I
>> don't know how you managed to find it let alone have the patience for it.
>>  I
>> haven't nor do I have the desire to do so.  Taking measurements is not the
>> only proof available.  When does logic and common sense ever come into
>> play
>> here?
>>
>
> It comes into play immediately when you find how much a soundboard has to
> move to produce the required tension changes. Yes, I've taken a whole lot of
> time trying to learn how things actually work, rather than assuming that
> what I was taught was correct. It used to be common sense that horse hairs
> in the rain barrel turned into worms. I take the time because I'm interested
> in learning something real.
>
> Ron N
>
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