Delwin Feurich wrote, >>"And I wonder why more don't have it today. It's not all that difficult to design and/or build and shouldn't add all that much to the final cost. ">> Perhaps they realise that it would be totally wasted on most pianos, considering that about 90% of households do not have their pianos tuned regularly enough. That una corda shift creates an amazing sound, but the piano has to be perfectly in tune. Even then the effect only seems to me to last about 20 minutes after the piano has just been tuned. When the piano is tuned, it sings, and when the una corda is shifted, it makes the piano sound like a heavenly choir. I had always suspected that it changed the harmonic content i.e. changed the relative amplitudes of the upper partials. I experimented once to find out what was going on and recorded the before and after effect into an FFT analyzer. To my astonishment, it was not the partials that increased in volume relative to the fundamental, but the fundamental had increased in volume relative to the harmonics. The mandolin rail appears to have the opposite effect. It's a pity that most people and kids learning piano never ever get to hear what their own piano is supposed to sound like and what an amazing sound it can produce. If they just heard it once, then I think they would have their instruments tuned much more often. Regards Alan Forsyth Edinburgh
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