The behavior of soundboards

[John Delacour]

At 11:18 AM -0500 27/2/02, Stephen Birkett wrote:

>Now that the discussion has calmed down - I found it difficult to 
>follow the various threads while the salvos were going back and 
>forth - perhaps this would be a good point to present a short, 
>dispassionate synopsis of these key experimental anomolies and 
>observations that need explanation.

Stephen, perhaps it would be a good point for you to lay your cards 
on the table and present _your_ view of the behaviour of the 
soundboard.  With your experience maybe you should be expected to 
have such a view and be prepared to express it.  I have been 
distinctly underwhelmed by the level of understanding I have seen 
expressed most verbosely by certain other "organologists" on your own 
list.  As to your own views in print, I have got the impression that 
you regard the "Five Lectures" as something like the state of the art 
in piano technology.

I cannot line up with Robin's latest message, which seems to be 
taking the question into a new realm.  How relevant it is, I can't 
say because I've not really had time to absorb what he's saying. 
When I have time, I'll try to make sense of it and respond.

I have already written far too much on the matter as my understanding 
has slowly improved to a certain low level, and I have nothing more 
to say at the moment except that in my opinion the Five Lectures and 
their authors may not have erred too much in their findings so far as 
they go, but the presentation is simplistic, inadequate and flawed. 
They go hardly any distance in really describing the behaviour of the 
system and seem to take into account none of the important findings 
in acoustics from Cremer onwards, which seem to me to be very 
relevant.  In fact I'm not sure Chladni could not have made a better 
fist of it.

Let's hear what the state of your knowledge is before we talk about 
synopses of well-chewed cud for the benefit of the undecided!

JD