Double Trouble (was re: What to Patent)

[Susan Kline]

Thanks, Clark, for all the interesting information. I'll look for the book
by Rosamond Harding. The point about members of the violin family having
disappointing tone when plucked is very well taken. It might have been better
to use the guitar as a model for a better acoustic system. Better yet, compare
where the violin and the guitar differ, and find out why the guitar has
better tone and sustain when plucked.

I assume that Maccaferri's Selmer guitars with the double back have improved
tone because the second back prevents the first from being damped by contact
with the player? ... the same reason we hold tuning forks by the very end.

Regards,

Susan

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>My associate recently looked at a Winter Musette console with a second
>soundboard! I sold an 1870's Baudet upright with two sound-boxes in the 
>corners
>behind the extreme ends of the bridges, lightly built onto the board (the
>brochure we found inside makes no mention of them). We are trying to buy a ca.
>1900 Mathushek upright with a double board with both panels attached to the
>single set of ribs.
>
>Rosamond Harding's _The Piano-Forte_ mentions an 1836 patent for a piano 
>with a
>double soundboard joined at their edges (and the first complete metal 
>frame) by
>Wheatly Kirk, another in 1842 by Johann Potje with a secondary bridge joining
>them. Henry Pape (of course) experimented with them, as well as John Broadwood
>(1783), Johann Anders (1824) and John Gunther (1828). In a slight 
>refinement of
>the idea, John Steward attempted to incorporate most of the violin family into
>his 1841 Euphonicon by having separate sounding boxes corresponding in 
>dimensions
>to violin, viola and 'cello. There are others...
>
>Pape, Potje, Anders, Gunther and Steward retained spacing approximate of 
>violin
>plates (or its relatives'), where Broadwood and Wheatly supplant the bottom of
>the instrument with the additional board. No mention is made of the 
>placement of
>posts when they were used, though it might be that the violin practice was
>carried over (essentially what they were doing in the first place) by 
>offsetting
>them somewhat from the bridge.
>
>The manual for Zuckermann's "Z-box" harpsichord kit suggests adding a post if
>downbearing is bad. Hendrick Broekmann is reproducing a German instrument with
>the 16' choir on a second, raised soundboard.
>
>
>I can only guess as to the influence some of these had on tone; one maker
>suggests the upper board might be made of metal, and most of the examples are
>variously experimental. At least for the earlier instruments there were 
>greater
>issues affecting tone than could be addressed by dual resonators, and enclosed
>boxes essentially were made with structural bottoms or back panels anyway.
>Certainly these attempts were more complicated to construct than usual but 
>this
>need not be the exclusionary factor in itself - Maccaferri's Selmer (D?) 
>guitars
>have a smaller second back inside which makes these instruments quite prized
>tonally (M. went on to invent and license a range of successful plastic string
>instruments).
>
>I suppose while admiring the (probably bowed) sound of the violin, these 
>makers
>discovered for themselves that the piano with tied resonances exhibited 
>some of
>the same features as pizzicato on violin: short, loud tone (with posts),
>'wolf-tone' ringing plate and cavity resonances, etc. I wouln't count these as
>tonal improvements.
>
>Clark