<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">   Delwin D Fandrich wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <blockquote dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000080 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Do you mean straight strung ?  grin.. sorry ... couldnt help myself.  Every time I see that "flat strung" term... I get this vision of some guy out there banging away at the string matial to flatten it before stringing the instrument. Cheers RIcB  </blockquote> <div dir="ltr">No. I don't mean straight strung. The term straight strung as applied to the piano having all of its string laid out in a more-or-less single plane has always bothered me. It implies that the strings are straight. But straight relative to what? Of course the strings are straight. Strings under tension are, by their nature, straight. So that means all pianos are straight strung.</div> </blockquote> <div dir="ltr">No no no no no... you got it all wrong here. The fact that the stings are by viture of the tension placed upon them straightened means the pianos has straight strings not that the piano is strung straightly. If we were to follow this logic you propose here we would have to say that because the piano is flatly strung it must per definition employ flat strings which clearly is not the case. The  strungedness of the piano is completely independant of whether or not the piano employs straight strings or for that matter flat strings.</div> <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <div dir="ltr">We must look further to figure out just what the straight in straight strung refers to. Does straight strung mean that the strings are perpendicular to the strike line? A bit of a stretch on the word, that. And besides, very few flat strung pianos have many of their strings oriented perpendicular to the strikeline--in some there are none at all--so the term straight strung would have to leave out all those whose strings deviate from that perpendicular-to-strikeline orientation. Or does the term straight strung mean that the strings are all parallel to each other? Again, few flat strung pianos have many of their strings laid parallel to each other--some have none at all. So, the term straight strung would have to leave out most flat strung pianos on that basis alone.</div> </blockquote> <div dir="ltr">I MUST, on the otherhand aggree with the reasoning herewith and above. The term straight strung as employed to reference the alternative string dispersement to overstrung clearly invokes problematic envisionments relative to the nature of the real deployment of the straight strings that I think virtually every piano employs.</div> <blockquote TYPE=CITE>  <div dir="ltr">On the other hand, the term flat strung clearly differentiates the string dispersement from its alternate, the overstrung string dispersion. It makes reference to the fact that the strings are all in a single, flat plane rather than sending some of the strings up and over some of the other strings.</div> </blockquote> <div dir="ltr"></div> <div dir="ltr">This term (flat strung), on the other hand again, while clearly differentiating the strings dispersement from overstrung, invokes even more problematic envisionments relative to the nature of the these same straight strings themselves.  And, I might add does no better job of differentiating itself from overstrung pianos then straight strung does anyways.</div> <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <div dir="ltr">Or should we just use non-overstrung piano having all strings in a single, more-or-less-flat plane. Seems a bit cumbersome. I'll stick with flat strung.</div> </blockquote> <div dir="ltr">I agree with the desirablity of moving away from the clearly misleading term straight strung. Yet I simply refuse to allow myself to be corrupted into using the equally if not furthur clumsic flat strung. So... I propose a completely different term... one that I think clearly exhasperates upon us its reasonablness.</div> <div dir="ltr"></div> Fanned Strung <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <div dir="ltr">Regards,</div> Del</blockquote> Chuckles 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>   </body> </html>