<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: Piano Design (was Interestingly Stable)</title></head><body> <div>At 8:11 PM -0700 3/7/04, Donald Mannino wrote:</div> <blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>. . . your criticism of the hooked bridge . . .  I want to suggest, though, that perhaps there may be trade-offs that have not occurred to you which have led so many piano designers to make their bridges this way.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I would be very interested to hear from you, particularly about what design aspects I may have overlooked.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>  I am not a piano design engineer</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>This is of no consequence to the discussion at hand. Alfred Wegener was trained as an Astronomist and Meteorologist, but it didn't stop him coming up with the idea of plate tectonics. He was ridiculed by the Geologists of the day for his views, but he was right and they were wrong. So go ahead, fire away.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>but I can think of a couple of reasons at the moment why bridges might be made with a hook at the tenor end.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>And they are?<font color="#0000FF"> (I can think of a couple as well, but these reasons don't constitute good design)</font></div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>I don't want to get into a disagreement over whether those reasons are valid or not, as that ends up as a disagreement over opinions regarding the relative merits of the trade-offs involved.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I do not subscribe to that view. I am prepared to debate the issue, particularly if all participants genuinely  are interested in taking understanding to a new level.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>  I have no argument against making the bridges 'hook free,' I only have an argument against saying that this is the only correct way to make pianos.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I didn't say that it was the only correct way, but I am certainly to prepared to state that any piano with a hockey stick bridge is, in my opinion, grossly inferior to a log style scale with an appropriately located cross-over for the size of piano. There may yet be better designs than log scaling, but so far nothing has come along yet which looks more promising. My views have not come about as some 'hair brained' idea dreamed up last week. I have studied and reflected upon a range of different instruments over a period of more than fifteen years, gradually building up a personal conviction, as to the merit of this scaling approach.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>I respect your work and your instruments, and I especially respect your dedication to applying new ideas to piano design.  It is a little hard to have respect for someone who assumes that their own ideas are the only valid ones, though.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I do not assume or state that my ideas are the only valid ones. And I certainly didn't put forward the idea with any delusion that it might gain your respect. Furthermore, I dispute that log scaling is my idea alone. While I came up with it independently many years ago<font color="#0000FF"> (during 1985 in fact, while servicing a Bösendorfer for the Sydney International Piano Competition - in those days it used to take me four hours to design a new log scale using a HP11C pocket calculator, 9 seconds per inharmonicity calc)</font>, there are a number of technicians who contribute to this list who share my view, and who almost certainly came up with idea independently as well. If you were paying attention you would have noticed that others, such as Del Fandrich and Ron Nossaman, are similarly convinced about the inadequacy of hockey stick scaling. The primary reason, I believe, why factories persist with this archaic scaling is that they lack the courage to move the break up to where it aught to be for pianos of a given size. Unfortunately, company supporters such as yourself appear to be so busy defending the corporate position that alternative ideas are likely to be put-down before they are given serious scrutiny.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Your reluctant position reminds me of the long road which was trodden by many, myself included, towards encouraging Kawai to quarter cut their bridge caps. I first brought his matter to the company's attention in my early days in this industry<font color="#0000FF"> (around 1980 I wasted a morning with one of the company representatives/disciples to no avail)</font>. I subsequently discovered that others had been trying to bring the same matter to their attention also. But as usual, all were considered to be 'lunatics out of left field'. Frankly, when I reflect on the closed attitude which so often pervades this industry, I some times wonder why we get out of bed in the mornings. And today, after years of prodding, Kawai are finally quarter cutting their bridge caps. So I suppose we can look forward to another thirty years of inappropriately low breaks with hockey stick ends from all the mainstream factories with their 'research' facilities, until finally the 'new-log idea' might see the light of day when it will no doubt be heralded as a new innovation.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>Piano design involves too many compromises to state that there is only one correct way to make a piano - and how boring they would be if there _were_ only one way!</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>On this, you won't get any disagreement from me. But if you dare to take a measuring tape to note F21 of a Fazioli 278, Kawai EX, Steinway D and Yamah CF, they all have a speaking length of 183 cm<font color="#0000FF"> (please don't suggest that this is some mystical-magical speaking length that years of dedicated research has determine to be the magic length)</font>. The first point of note is that the lowest note on the long bridge of all four concert pianos is F21 - how original are the late comers? The second point of note, that all F21 notes are 183 cm, is simply depressing. So you see, the boring state of affairs that you believe we should guard against is already with us.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Ron O.</div> <div><br></div> <div><br></div> <div>At 2:52 AM -0400 4/7/04, David Skolnik wrote:</div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>Ron-<br> A gold mine.  Thanks.  I still have to work out the time differences.  The stream is, on the whole, very good.  The engineering is excellent.  Distortion due to the transmission medium is evident in the applause...</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>Yes, the applause and hi level treble passages seem to carry the worst distortion.</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>a high frequency metallic sound.  It's hard for me to tell how this impacts the piano sound.  No matter...what a great opportunity.  I'll be sorry to miss any of this.  What a shame it's not available as audio-on-demand.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I am informed that the performances will be made available for on-demand streaming. So far I am impressed with the tonal beauty of the Yamaha CF<font color="#0000FF"> (the voicing and tuning of this piano is first rate)</font>, although it isn't as powerful as the Steinway, which I find rather rough-edged, with a short impedance characteristic in the top treble section, with plenty of string noise in the second top section and a rather boomy character around the bass/treble transition<font color="#0000FF"> (I'll have to go along to have a listen in the hall, but I know the acoustics of this room. They're appalling)</font>. The Kawai EX sounds pretty good from the short time I've heard it, but I need to hear more performances from this piano to develop an impression in my 'mind's-ear'. I feel that it takes more than one performance on a piano to gain an overall impression of its characteristics. Different pianists seem to bring out different characteristics in each instrument.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Any other views out there yet?</div> <div><br></div> <div>One good thing about this competition is that the broadcast settings remain the same for each piano, and the pianos are positioned at exactly the same position on the stage each time. So any perceived recording bias will be the same for all pianos.</div> <div><br></div> <div>By the way, the Competition specialist commentator, Gerard Willems, is the concert pianist who recorded the Beethoven recordings on the Stuart pianos over the past couple of years.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Ron O.</div> <div><br></div> <x-sigsep><pre>-- </pre></x-sigsep> <div><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#0000FF"><b>OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY</b></font></div> <div><font color="#000000"><i>   </i></font><font color="#0000FF"><i>Grand Piano Manufacturers</i></font><font color="#000000"><br> _______________________</font></div> <div><font size="-2" color="#000000"><br> </font><font color="#000000">Web http://overspianos.com.au</font></div> <div><font color="#000000">mailto:info@overspianos.com.au<br> _______________________</font></div> </body> </html>