Chickering tone

[Horace Greeley]

Allan,

I do think you have a point here.  There are a couple of  places to look
into this that I can think of off hand:  One is an older book on acoustics
by Miller (the title presently escapes me); the other is the book on piano
design/construction by Edgar Brinsmead (perhaps now out of print).

Part of the issue is also - at what point did these various methods of
reductive measurement become convergent instead of divergent?  e.g., which
oF or oC _scale_ was in use.  There was a period of time during which these
things floated almost as much as wire gauges have...

Thanks also for the vote on the sound issue - it seems to me that the
paucity of reliable recordings of real period instruments (sorry, this may
be a minority view, again) badly skews our contemporary perceptions of what
these things sounded like "in the flesh".

Best.

Horace


>In a message dated 97-04-17 19:13:28 EDT, you write:
>
><< Remember that this piano was designed for a maximum of A=435.  Going
>higher
> than that will, at the very least, change the balance of the tone, with a
> possibility of some structural damage.  >>
>
>Horace,
>
>Maybe I'm wrong on this and someone can correct me, but I seem to remember
>reading somewhere in the journal that A 435 was at about 59 degrees F while A
>440 os measured at 72 degrees F.  This change in temp makes them about the
>same.  Perhaps someone with a much better memory than mine can remember which
>issue this was brought up in.
>
>BTW, I personally enjoy that "old" Chickering sound and even the ones from
>the late 1800's (since, as you mentioned, it is a different sound).  That's
>one of the things that I think is of great importance, and is often
>overlooked, when people try to give an "authentic period" performance just by
>retuning to a different temperament.
>
>Allan
>
>Allan L. Gilreath, RPT
>Gilreath Piano & Organ Co.
>Berry College
>Gilreath@aol.com
>Calhoun, GA USA




Horace Greeley			hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu

	"Always forgive your enemies,
		nothing annoys them so much.

			-	Oscar Wilde

LiNCS				voice: 725-4627
Stanford University		fax: 725-9942