Duplex Scale Tuning/hearing impairment and piano design

[Doug Hershberger]

Bill,
   Thanks for mentioning this book, that is probably where I heard it
indirectly from a friend.
Doug Hershberger,RPT
Aliso Viejo, CA

----- Original Message -----
From: <Bdshull@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 1999 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: Duplex Scale Tuning/hearing impairment and piano design


> Doug, Del, list:
>
> I picked up on this thread rather late -- forgive me for missing a lot of
it.
>  Read Doug's note and couldn't resist this:
>
> D. W. Fostle, in "The Steinway Saga", pp. 107-114, discusses the problems
of
> hearing loss in the Steinways.  Not only Heinrich himself, but the two
> Steinway sons most associated with the modern Steinway, Henry Jr. and
> Theodore, were hearing impaired, and Fostle suggests that the short-term
> hearing loss associated with alcohol further affected Henry's hearing.
Even
> the factory workers may have been permitted to drink rather freely, with
> similar short-term effects.
>
> Fostle has too many interesting statements to quote them all, but here are
a
> couple, from p. 114:
>
> Referring to the "'unpleasant tone' to which some objected,...produced in
the
> upper partials of the individual notes":  "It is likely that Heinrich,
> Charles, and Henry Steinway -- and probably William -- did not hear these
> partials in the same way that others did, if the Steinways heard them at
> all."
>
> "Decisions at the largest piano manufactory in America, whose instruments
and
> their sound was the benchmark for the future, were made by men with a
unique
> perception of the auditory world."
>
> Bill Shull
>
> Fully sober, neglecting my shop deadline while writing about typhus- and
> alcohol-impaired piano builders on the net....
>
> << What was Steinway's role in developing the duplex scale? I'm sure to
some
>  folks in those earlier days the Steinways, which I believe were
continually
>  getting louder and brasher sounding were too much. A technician friend of
>  mine was reading something about the early days of Steinway and the
author
>  was speculating that a lot of people in the factory in those days could
have
>  actually had major hearing loss. I guess we were just talking about why
>  Steinway started using hammer hardeners. If there is any truth to that
maybe
>  it could apply to the duplex scale as well. Of course there is no way to
>  prove that but when he told me it made me wonder. It might have been from
>  the man that translated Helmholtz's book.  Sorry I cannot remember the
>  source. I'll ask next time I see him. >>
>