[CAUT] False beats Steinway B

[Richard Brekne]

Hi Jim

Sorry to be in late on this... been busy and wanted to read carefully 
the 2nd article on false beats in the journal before answering.

    That's what was a bit weird; it  (pressing the pin with a
    screwdriver I presume) actually made the beats stronger and more
    pronounced. Keith said "wow, that's a loud beat!"

    Jim

This goes hand in hand with what I've been saying along... and most 
definitely shoots major holes in the whole flagpolling pin idea. And 
before anyone gets up in arms and points out that article number 2 
<<confirms>> the flagpolling a effect a bridge pin can have let me 
remind one and all that in article 1 Jim clearly states that his 
experiments do NOT take into consideration the affect of the bridge and 
bridge coupling to soundboard, nor the soundboard itself for that 
matter.  His experiments in article 2 show only what  measurable of 
string behavior for four bridge termination conditions... along with 
some shorter information about front termination conditions.

None of this considers what a real life piano may produce in the face of 
any of the controlled experiment conditions the string itself displays.  
It is entirely possible for a false beating string to fail to produce an 
audible or even measurable (from the perspective of soundboard sound 
output).  This is easily confirmed by examining just about any 60 year 
old beater.  At that age you can bet that every single bridge pin has 
its hole elongated enough to do the job described in point two of Jims 
last article. Yet despite the flagpolling condition only a minority 
fraction of strings in such pianos actually produce an audible false 
beat of the kind that responds in any fashion to the screwdriver 
pressure test.

All this points clearly to the obvious fact that in real pianos quite a 
bit more is involved in the end resultant false beat.  Things that lay 
beyond the compound termination that is the bridge pin and bridge 
surface in the path that starts with the string and ends with the 
soundboards vibrations clearly come into play and it is only when 
certain as yet undetermined combination of moments occur in concert as 
it were that an audible false beat results.

At present I'm seeking funding from the University system here in Norway 
for a more down to earth survey of false beat occurrence in real piano 
for different bridge termination conditions. Informal studies have shown 
clearly that there is no statistical correlation between the occurrence 
of a classic false beat and any particular bridge pin condition.  The 
only thing that has shown to have a clear significant relationship is 
the addition of certain chemicals to the bridge at the bridge pin in 
reductions of already occurring classic false beats.  This includes CA, 
Epoxy and Lacquers. What the exact relationship is here is as far as I 
can see not understood. It is to my mind of thinking unwarranted to jump 
to the conclusion that this simply <<tightens>> a loose bridge pin since 
no correlation between loose bridge pins and occurring false beats in 
real pianos can be found to begin with.

As to your B.... have you tried muting off the entire back scale to see 
if the false beating is quieted ?

Cheers
RicB