warning: intense discussion of tension

[Ron Nossaman]

> Ron
>  
> Right, of course, it's not a linear measurement, but it is a measurement 
> between two points, and I guess my question was "What two points?" 

The whole string.


> Seems to me, if you are correct, that references to plate tension 
> increases due to pitch raises, etc., are really just guesses, and are 
> not backed up by any scientific measuring of tension at all.  Which is 
> kind of what it seemed like to me.

No, not a guess. It's an estimate using established and 
empirically verified formulas. Exact and precise measurement 
of string tensions isn't called for in estimating overall 
tension changes on plates with pitch corrections. The existing 
math is good enough. It is, after all, the same math used to 
calculate new string scales, and is adequate for that use.


> One of the reasons I brought this up was to question, to myself, whether 
> the only manipulation of the tuning pin that changed the tension on the 
> plate was actually turning it.  (I imagined that any rendering of the 
> string, via flagpoling, for instance, would not change the actual 
> tension on the plate, since the overall tension of the string would not 
> be changed.)
>  
> Tom Sivak

If you change the pitch with any manipulation of the tuning 
pin, you've changed the tension of the string. The effect on 
the plate from flagpoling one tuning pin is pretty much 
inconsequential. Overall scale tensions change far more than 
that with the cycling of the heating or air conditioning 
minute by minute.
Ron N