<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html>   Keith McGavern wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE> Del, Richard, If it were a matter of establishing terminology to supposedly eliminate confusion in the piano industry, non-overstrung would simply be the best description, no ifs and or buts. It embraces all of the following: Straight strungFlat strungFanned strung And other than comprising more syllables and a hyphen, it seems hardly less inconvenient to use. Keith McGavern (Straight strung works for me until Council decides otherwise  :-)</blockquote> I understand your viewpoint here Keith, really. But perhaps it might be a good idea to point out that much of the confusion stems from the use of the term overstrung to begin with. It really started because some people decided at one point that the term cross-strung was misleading and prompted many to think along the lines of a weapon, while still others envisioned something along the lines of what comes out of a weaving machine. Really when it comes down to it, overstrung is no better as one can easily imagine the piano as either having too much tension, too many strings,  or having its strings strung somehow over the piano. It was hotly debated according to the anals of history whether or not the term should be overstrung or understrung. The problem with the later was that it was thought this would lead people to believe such an instrument didnt have enough strings of course so the former was reluctantly choosen. Besides, it had already been decided in a completely different forum to associate the term understrung with G-strung which of course had nothing at all to do with music.... at least not in the normal sense of the word. Of course prior to this occasion there was no alternative to reference hence no term used to describe what now goes under the different guises listed above. All would have been much simpler had they never started crossing bass strings over the tenors in the first place you see. Hope this helps Cheers RicB -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway <A HREF="mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no">mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no</A> <A HREF="http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html">http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html</A> <A HREF="http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html">http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html</A>  </html>