Last Three Strings

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

Hi Glen:

The normal idea in having the strings progress in wire size as you go
down the scale has to do with keeping the tension more or less even.
Using a smaller size wire for the lowest two could have been to help 
keep the inharmonicity better in line, however, in 1919, they couldn't
even spell inharmonicity; the word was not invented yet. So, that is
probably not the reason. a smaller sized wire would give a weaker but
a little brighter sound. That may have been the reason. Only one other
reason occurs to me and that is that occasionally in plain strings one
may encounter a poor longitudinal mode frequency which sticks out like
a sore thumb. Changing diameter can sometimes eliminate this problem.
There is a well known 6' grand which has this feature in the tenor 
section. They would do well to change diameter to avoid this problem.
A longitudinal mode problem is where a partial of the end to end mode
of vibration is nearly coincident with one of the higher transverse
mode partials causing a high peak (usually with a beat in it) to be
very prominent.

Glen, you have the rare opportunity to try it both ways to see if indeed
you can hear a difference since it only involves two notes.

Jim Coleman, Sr.