[pianotech] somewhat OT Re: sounds, noise, our loud world

[Delwin D Fandrich]

There are practical reasons to stop at 3 strings per tenor/treble unison.
When you look at the obvious exception—the Blüthner—you’ll see the action
center spacing start to get some wide. Carry this through the whole tenor
and, because the action stack has to be made wider, the key flare also has
to increase. This, of course, increases the friction drag on the center rail
bushings causing them to wear out even faster than they do now. As well,
hammers would have to be made wider which would further increase their
already excessive mass. Then hammershanks need to be made stiffer; ditto
wippens. And then there are the keys which, in addition to their increased
flare would also have to be made stiffer to handle the additional mass of
the action. And on and on and on
.

 

Not to mention that the timbral transition is difficult enough between the
wrapped strings and the tri-chord plain steel strings as it is. I can’t see
how that would be improved any using four-string unisons.

 

I’m sticking to what I’ve been saying for some time now: There is little
wrong with modern “music” that a good, long-term power outage doesn’t solve.
Even though the lack of electricity may not do anything to improve the
actual quality of the stuff at least we’re not forced to unwillingly listen
to it three blocks away.

 

ddf

 

Delwin D Fandrich

Piano Design & Fabrication

620 South Tower Avenue

Centralia, Washington 98531 USA

fandrich at pianobuilders.com

Phone  360.736.7563

 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of David Nereson
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 5:16 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] somewhat OT Re: sounds, noise, our loud world

 

    If the population had never grown and concert halls had 

never gotten larger, pianos may have remained 2-string unison 

instruments with no cast iron plate.  The plate was developed to 

hold the higher tension of 3-string unison instruments that had 

to project to the back of larger concert halls and had to be 

louder to be heard over larger symphony orchestras.  Later it 

became necessary to mike even pianos, but only because most of 

the other instruments were amplified.  I wonder if amplifiers 

hadn't been invented, if they would have started stringing them 

with 4 or 5 unison strings and even heavier plates?

      --David Nereson, RPT

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