[CAUT] clavichord, laminated soundboard

[Fred Sturm]

On Feb 11, 2011, at 9:38 AM, Laurence Libin wrote:

> 1. Clavichords with a sustaining stop (called a 'pantalon' stop)  
> were produced in the 18th century. The device consists of a second  
> set of tangents that remain in contact with the strings after the  
> striking tangent falls away, allowing the strings to continue  
> vibrating.

How is that physically possible? The tangent from the key both sets  
the string in motion and stops its length (determines the speaking  
length). The second tangent would have to be in precisely the same  
place, hence the moving tangent couldn't set the string in motion. Or  
am I missing something?

> 2. Six-octave clavichords were produced until about 1820.
> 3. Laminated piano soundboards were also used in the 18th century,  
> notably by Lemme.

According to Montal, Pleyel also experimented with lamination:
             "In 1830, M. Pleyel introduced veneered soundboards in  
the piano. This improvement, which astonished the whole world, because  
it was in opposition to all recognized ideas, gave however happy  
results.

             "M. Dizy, associated with M. Pleyel for the fabrication  
of harps, had been led, by various experiments concerning the  
resistance of soundboards, to glue to an ordinary spruce soundboard a  
thin board of another wood, crossing the fibers to give it more  
solidity. His friends and workmen tried in vain to dissuade him from  
this attempt, which seemed to them to be folly. But this professor  
persisted in his idea, and the harp thus built did not truthfully have  
more power than an ordinary harp, but the tone gained in the area of  
quality. Then M. Pleyel made a trial of the same sort on a grand  
piano, veneering in mahogany a spruce board, crossing the fibers of  
the woods. The result was the same, that is to say that the tone did  
not increase in volume, but it acquired a particular quality that was  
very satisfactory, the treble becoming brilliant and silvery, the  
middle penetrating and accentuated, and the bass clear and vigorous."

Montal also wrote about Lemme, and some English makers who copied him:

             "In 1832, MM. Bell father and son, distinguished English  
makers established in Paris, came up with the idea of replacing  
veneering and ribbing of boards with what they call doubled boards.  
These are two spruce boards, of nearly the same thickness, glued one  
to the other crossing the fibers of the woods. The lower board is  
beveled on its edges, and thinner than the upper board, so as to give  
it more elasticity all around, close to the rim of the instrument, on  
which it is attached. These makers glue in addition, at a certain  
distance from one another, parallel cloth ribbons length and  
widthwise, so as to form squares among them. These ribbons are  
varnished after being glued, to keep the glue from deteriorating. They  
hope by this means to increase the solidity of the board without  
diminishing its vibratory movement up and down, which is established  
by the perpendicular oscillations of the strings.

             "MM. Bell construct, with the aid of these boards,  
remarkable instruments, among which are distinguished their pianinos  
of three strings.

             "A little later, M. Raoult, another Paris maker, also had  
the idea of doubling boards. It seems in any case that this procedure  
is not new, for, according to an article in la Gazette Musicale de  
Paris, a maker from Brunswick, named Lemme, grandfather of Charles  
Lemme, maker of Paris, needing to send a piano to Batavia in 1771,  
feared that an ordinary board would not hold up against the variations  
of temperature on so long a voyage. Therefore he glued two spruce  
boards one on the other, so that the fibers of each, laid out  
transversally to one another, would lend each other mutual resistance.  
But it is probable that our makers had no knowledge of this  
experiment, and that they owe their ideas to their own  
investigations."	Not much new under the sun <G>.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm

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