[CAUT] The fundamental - Where is it?

[Laurence Libin]

We need to be careful interpreting Meyer's test results in a performance 
context. For example, while the una corda diminishes loudness less than 
might be expected, this assumes the same force of blow with and without it; 
usually, though, the pianist employs the una corda along with a less 
forceful touch, thus magnifying the aural difference. I believe Rubenstein 
once confided that as a special tonal effect, he played loud while using the 
una corda. Also, in performance with the lid closed, pianists generally play 
more lightly, again changing the intensity even more than the test implies.
One measure of a sensitive piano might be the degree to which the tone 
changes in tandem with dynamic level, assuming this is desirable (it makes 
the music more colorful to my ear). Old pianos, especially with Viennese 
actions, tend to be good at this, partly because the flexibility of the 
shank and the action set-up change the strike point (between PP and FF) more 
than normally occurs on a modern piano. Among other factors are hammer 
resilience and damper efficiency, so the variables are more compex than 
Meyer's tests might indicate.
Laurence



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Sturm" <fssturm at unm.edu>
To: <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 10:40 AM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] The fundamental - Where is it?


>I had a bit of time to look some more at "The Physics of Musical 
>Instruments" (seems to be the basic text on the subject), and the 
>reference for the statement that for A0 the fundamental is 25dB below  the 
>level of the strongest component is footnoted to an article from  1978 by a 
>J. Meyer in a German journal (which we don't have in our  library - I can 
>provide the specifics if anyone is interested).
> But looking through a few more paragraphs, I found some interesting 
> statements, also referred to the same Meyer article, that might be 
> interesting to many of you.
>
> "The sound level difference between single notes played FF and PP is  30 
> to 35 dB. At a distance of 10 m from the piano, one finds levels  from 50 
> to 85 dB in the bass and from 37 to 70 dB in the treble. Much  of the 
> difference between FF and PP playing is due to change in timbre  rather 
> than loudness. Playing FF emphasizes the higher partials.  Depressing the 
> una corda pedal reduces the sound level by about 1 dB,  but also changes 
> the timbre. Raising or lowering the lid causes  surprisingly little change 
> in the overall sound level, although it  causes rather marked changes in 
> the strength of the high frequency  sound in certain directions."
>
> Some of this is pretty standard stuff, but the numbers are rather 
> interesting, especially the 1 dB for una corda. One does want to  examine 
> the experimental set up to know the precise details (one  assumes it was 
> set up so that one string was cleared, for instance,  but maybe not). 
> Anyway, food for thought, and some nice facts to have  in the back pocket 
> for talking intelligently to customers.
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> University of New Mexico
> fssturm at unm.edu
>
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