Seating/false beats

[Susan Kline]

Whee, this is going too fast to keep up!

I wrote:
>>Well, are false beats worse in the eastern U.S. where humidity changes are
>>drastic, or do they also happen in places like Montana and Arizona? If
>>people can clean up false beats in dry climates by seating strings, then
>>something other than humidity is at work. Hard blows seem a likely place to
>>look.

>Actually, humidity changes in Arizona are drastic.  Last week the RH was
>11%.
        <snip>
> Add to that
>the days that it rains - still over 105 and now the RH at 90-100% and one
>begins to doubt one's level of sanity for leaving a place like Calgary
>(which has real seasons) to come here (a place whose only two seasons are
>"HOT" and "HOT AS ^%#^#%&!!").
>
>----
>Rick Florence, Piano Technician
>Arizona State University, School of Music
>http://www.asu.edu/cfa/music/

Thanks, Rick. Another illusion crumples away to dust. Am I still safe saying
Montana? Colorado always stayed dry when I lived there, more or less.

I'm sure you had your reasons for going to Arizona ...I don't think I will!
____________________________________________________________________________

As usual, Horace's comments suggest further questions for me:

>I must admit that all of this talk about "seating" strings on bridges
>bothers me somewhat.
>
>There is no question but what this is a necessary thing to do from time to
>time, and under varying circumstances.  On the other hand, I've seen
>countless pianos with the strings driven halfway to Baltimore - literally
>half the string diameter imbedded in the cap.

This happens to stringed instruments, especially to cheap, neglected school
instruments. The upper strings embed themselves deep (6 diameters deep) into
the top of the (narrow) bridge, getting smothered in the process. The tone
is narrow and constrained. We used to take the strings off and widen the
notches, to improve the tone. (These instruments were not made by
Stradivarius.) It helped, though no doubt a string repair person would have
groaned.

The end of the speaking length of a piano string is already constrained at
two points, even without the inevitable notching from downbearing. When is
enough contact too much contact?

Is the problem with losing bridge contact that the piece of string not quite
touching the bridge leaks sound, like a duplex? I wouldn't picture it as
being that far off the bridge.

>>What if
>>the next performer is heavy handed, and will drive them right back up?
>
>Some may.  But, if the piano is well maintained, the effect will be
>minimal, if at all noticable.

What might make some pianos (less well maintained) more prone to unseated
strings? (minimal downbearing? excessive sidebearing?) --- Well, this just
restates the question of the whole thread: what gets them up there?

The discussion seems to be weighing humidity versus hard blows as the cause
of unseating. Humidity had never occurred to me until this thread. Might
there be a third option that never occurred to anyone?

Also, do the false beats come from being off the bridge, or just from loose
bridge pins? My tendency is to blame loose bridge pins or kinked or
overstretched wire.

>>When we do use
>>whole-hearted test blows, do we drive them back up ourselves?
>
>I seem to be, in yet again another way, a dinosaur here.  I tune _very_
>hard.  Very hard, indeed.

Experience, no substitute for it. If you have experience with strings which
need seating, and experience with heavy, <very hard> tuning, and you do not
notice that one produces the other, that answers the point fairly
conclusively. Is it possible that even heavy test blows don't unsettle the
strings as much as a pianist because only one note is being struck and the
pedal isn't being used?

>> What happens
>>to the bridge top and pins when we seat -- unseat -- seat, over and over?
>>
>
>My point, exactly.  Unless _great_ care is taken, a good deal of damage can
>be done very quickly.

We've heard a lot about damage to the bridge, which is obvious. Does
over-vigorous seating also damage the wire? (bending it around the bridge
pin,  etc.)

I was interested in Steve McCann's point about seating them away rather than
toward the bridge pin. (They'll contact the pin all right, anyway.) Does
anyone else have experience with this?

(Horace, again:)
>A good deal depends on the age and condition of the strings here, as well.
>If the instrument is a "serious" concert instrument, treble strings can
>need replacment in about 2 years of use.

and we can guess how often they _get_ replaced ...

>Also, how hard are the hammers?  Often, in trying to get more "sound" out
>of a piano, a technician will misdiagnose strings that need replacement,
>and over harden the hammers.  These, then, interact with the strings
>differently than a properly voiced hammer, and the piano actually produces
>not only less sound, but of inferior quality.  (Further, in what seems to
>be an unconcious adaptation, folks seem to tune this strings more and more
>sharp, exacerbating the situation and accelerating the deterioration of the
>strings.)

Okay, I'll bite. Is work hardening the problem? Can you describe how you
diagnose strings that need replacement?

Also, from what's being said, how often could the bridge top really use
recapping, in "serious" instruments? When people talk about planing it off
to remove grooves, what's happening to the downbearing?

>Antares writes:
>Then we must take a look at Bechstein with 88 agraffes, they are
>notorious, I said >>notorious<< for false beats!

So, on Bechsteins at least, the bridge would seem to be the culprit?

Interested as ever, hope I haven't started a lot of wild geese.

Susan

Susan Kline
skline@proaxis.com
P.O. Box 1651,
Philomath, OR 97370

Murphy's out there ... waiting ...