yamaha broken strings

[Glenn Grafton]

>We had an interesting discussion on this a while back, and I think it was
>Newton who summarized the situation perfectly. They break because of a
>combination too high scale tension, weakening of the wire due to bonding at
>the bar and possible corrosion, as well as  poorly shaped, hard hammers, and
>aggressive playing. Anything else?
>
>
>Dennis Johnson

The string breakage is often due to the string being struck hard while
still vibrating, causing conflicting forces and stress on the string.

We had a customer with a Yamaha U1 48" upright piano some years ago that
took delivery of the piano and complained a few weeks later that their son
had broken a string.
Guess what, the piano they traded in (a Baldwin) had several broken strings
and several that had been replaced.

The summation was that they had changed pianos but not the player.

There is a certain type of playing that seems to wrack havock on
strings--hard, heavy playing. We've also encountered this in churches with
upright pianos that usually aren't mic'ed and where they play heavy gospel
music. We've observed very heavy wear on these pianos, action, hammers,
broken strings.

The solution seems to be to mic the piano and amplify it so the player and
congregation can hear the piano without the pianist having to beat it, or
getting a larger piano more suitable to the level of piano volume needed.

Glenn Grafton
Grafton Piano & Organ Co.