1 string, 2 strings, 3 strings or more

[Overs Pianos]

At 18:54 19/09/01 -0500, Ron Nossaman wrote:

>I really don't understand this one at all. What is the rationale for the
>reluctance to put a bass tenor break where it belongs by putting more
>strings on the bass bridge? My scaling spreadsheet tells me the natural
>break point for any traditionally scaled piano is nearly never where was
>actually built into the piano. Why is having only 20, or 21, or 22 unisons
>on the bass bridge such a good thing, while having 28, or 30, or 32 is so
>bad when it produces such a much nicer scale? True, it's too late to make
>these changes with a rebuild without adding the transition bridge, but
>what's wrong with doing it right on the drawing board in the first place?

Here here Ron N !!

While JD added;

>. . . . because there were some pretty good scales around even in 
>the early 1900s

Just wondering, which scales from around 1900 do you consider to be 
pretty good?

>  . . . .  just as every grand piano now produced uses an older and 
>less well designed version of the Erard action than was available 
>off the shelf in 1900 and many makers till recently used an even 
>nastier version.

Are you referring to the older Schwander style action with the longer 
repetition spring attached with loop chord, as being the better 
designed older action, and the wing spring thing as being the modern 
less well designed version? Just wondering what particular designs 
you are referring to.

>On the one hand there is a huge fund of treasures, some buried, some 
>lost, many burned but many accessible, to be found in the works of 
>the past and on the other there is a continuance by today's makers 
>of practices and designs many of which should have been discarded 
>100 years ago or more.

Possibly so. Would you also concede that there may be worthy 
contemporary ideas which remain to become mainstream? I don't think 
we should hold up any age as one to be regarded with reverence over 
another. In any time there will be good and ordinary ideas. There are 
thinkers of today who are just as capable of conceiving new and 
worthwhile design improvements.

Ron O
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Website:  http://www.overspianos.com.au
Email:        mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au
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