<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1141" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <DIV>The stature of our pianists would make me seem a tad cheeky to suggest to them how they should be playing.  On of our teachers at SMU stresses forte playing to his students.  He says that your piano means nothing if your forte is not forte.  As a result, both he and his students do break a lot of strings.  His job is playing and teaching.  My job is fixing.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>All this to say that it depends greatly on the player, their technique, and the literature they are playing.  One girl -- who recently recorded all the Legetti (sp) etudes -- broke LOTS of strings while she was practicing for that session.  She later recorded some Scriabin preludes and didn't break many during that preparation.  Mozart doesn't break many strings, Liszt seems to break more.  Replacing 10 strings a week is not uncommon for me.  It's just part of the job.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>dave<BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********<BR><BR>On 2/20/2003 at 10:31 AM Delwin D Fandrich wrote:</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid"> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>----- Original Message ----- <DIV>From: "Lance Lafargue" <<A href="mailto:lancelafargue@bellsouth.net"><FONT color=#000000>lancelafargue@bellsouth.net</FONT></A>></DIV> <DIV>To: "Caut (E-mail)" <<A href="mailto:caut@ptg.org"><FONT color=#000000>caut@ptg.org</FONT></A>></DIV> <DIV>Sent: February 20, 2003 6:24 AM</DIV> <DIV>Subject: String breakage</DIV></DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV>> Hi,<BR>> I'd like some feedback on everyone's experience with piano wire life/string<BR>> breakage and the need to restring pianos.  I have a University with several<BR>> Steinway and a few Baldwin D's and B's and they are breaking strings in the<BR>> treble.  I actually occasionally break them myself when tuning and broke one<BR>> once when I was string voicing/leveling.  They break at the V-bar. Many of<BR>> these pianos are only 7-15 years old.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Try to not think of this phenomena in terms of years, but in terms of hammer blows. And not just in terms of the number of hammer blows, but the <EM>quality</EM> of the hammer blows. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Under <EM>normal</EM> playing conditions (whatever those are) a typical treble string will survive something on the order of 500,000 to 1,000,000 hammer blows without undo stress. But there are some assumptions attached. It assumes hammers of reasonable resilience--an increasingly rare characteristic these days. It assumes the hammers are not excessively massive--another increasingly rare condition in the <EM>modern</EM> piano. It assumes the hammer has a reasonably round, not flattened, shape. It assumes the capo tastro bar is reasonable well shaped. And it assumes the physical characteristics of the wire falls within the <EM>average</EM> strength characteristics intended by the string manufacturer. Some brands of piano wire stand up better than others, but the differences are relatively minor. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We are currently using Mapes International Gold wire. It has demonstrated somewhat better tensile strength and working life characteristics than any of the others currently available and its surface characteristic has a higher polish than most others--it's cleaner. Even within one brand of wire, however, specifications such as tensile strength are always averages, not absolutes. Some batches of wire will run high, some low. A batch of Mapes IG wire running low will break at lower tension than a batch of some other wire running high. If a batch of wire runs low, all of the pianos strung with that batch will be prone to string breakage some early. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>(The acoustical qualities of all brands of piano wire are essentially the same--claims of audible tonal characteristics between brands of wire are highly suspect and unproven. Even my own.)</DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>Assuming each note is played 100 times a day--I've not studies this but I shouldn't this this an abnormal number for a practice room piano--that gives you about 5,000 to 10,000 days of use. Assuming 250 days of use per year that adds up to 20 to 40 years of life for a typical string on a typical piano. If the pianos are used daily this comes down to 13.7 to 27.4 years of life.</DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>Now, maybe the hammer moldings were running a bit on the heavy side. Or perhaps someone put a set of (any brand--Japanese or German) hard-pressed hammers on the piano. Or, maybe we let the capo tastro get a bit grooved and rattley. Or we put a little lacquer on the hammers to brighten up that <EM>killer-octave</EM> everyone has been complaining about. Has the piano been suffering under the pounding of some up-and-coming technical master who has not been taught the subtleties of musicianship? (The size of the pianist does not seem to be much of a factor here--some of the worst string-breakers in my experience have been physically quite small. One of them a very slender young women who couldn't have been 5' 1" or 5' 2". It's a matter of technique and having not been taught the joys of dynamics and subtlety. Did their pianos through the formative years lacked the same?) </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>As all may be, bottom line is that the string life you are experiencing may be quite normal given the design, the hammers, the overall condition of the pianos and the pianists in question. Others have indicated what can be done to prolong the string life of the piano. To which I can only add: keep the hammers well shaped, keep them light and keep them resilient. And resist the demands to make the pianos <EM>bright</EM> and <EM>powerful</EM>. And try to impress on the pounders--be they students or professors--that the beauty of the pianoforte lies in its subtlety not its absolute power output.</DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>Del</DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#000080><FONT face="Lucida Sans" color=#000000>Delwin D Fandrich<BR>Piano Designer & Builder<BR>Hoquiam, Washington  USA<BR>E.mail:</FONT>  <A href="mailto:pianobuilders@olynet.com">pianobuilders@olynet.com</A><BR><FONT face="Lucida Sans" color=#000000>Web Site:  </FONT><A href="http://www.pianobuilders.com">www.pianobuilders.com</A></FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV><FONT size=2 Arial></BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></BODY></HTML> <PRE> _____________________________ David M. Porritt dporritt@mail.smu.edu Meadows School of the Arts Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275 _____________________________</PRE>