[CAUT] strikeweight

[Albert Picknell]

Thank you, Ken, for taking the time to do this.  I hadn't forgotten about this thread, but my summer was busy too, so it wasn't exactly in the forefront of my consciousness.
 
Not having studied statistics, I don't know what all the rows and columns of figures mean, but I'll trust you know what you're talking about.  I'm not entirely surprised by the results.  In looking at the collected data, I did think I saw a mild correlation between strikeweight and pitch, but I thought it was just that - mild.  I suspect there are other factors that have a more significant influence on pitch, such as wood grain consistency, wood stiffness, etc.  These are probably not so easy to measure, though.  And I agree that "better" is not an easy thing to define here.
 
Well, I must move on to more pressing matters.  Thanks again Ken.  All the best in your new endeavours.
 
Albert

--- On Mon, 9/15/08, Zahringer, Kenneth A. <zahringerk at missouri.edu> wrote:

From: Zahringer, Kenneth A. <zahringerk at missouri.edu>
Subject: Re: [CAUT] strikeweight
To: "College and University Technicians" <caut at ptg.org>
Received: Monday, September 15, 2008, 9:21 AM

Hey, All,

Well, I hope everyone hasn't completely forgotten about this thread.  A
couple of months ago there was a discussion of sorting shanks by pitch
vs strike weight.  Albert Picknell took some measurements on a set of
Renner shanks and I offered to do some data analysis.  My summer was
pretty hectic and I just now got around to doing the analysis.  A more
complete report is attached, but here is the bottom line:

Pitch and SW aren't related much at all.  I was a little surprised at
this, but I looked at it every way I could think of and the lack of
correlation was consistent.  According to this data, whatever factors
influence the pitch we hear when we tap or scratch a shank, the mass is
not particularly important.  To say it another way, if you sort a set of
shanks by SW it's different from sorting them by pitch.  Statistical
methods can't say whether one sorting method is better than the other,
or even if "better" is a meaningful concept here.  They also
can't say
whether one sorting method is more or less likely to get you the
particular results you want with a particular piano.  This much is very
clear, however: pitch and SW are different things.

The attachment goes into some of the gory details for anyone who is
interested.  If anyone wants to pursue this and furnish more data or
suggest different ways of taking measurements, I will be happy to do
more analysis.  I will try to do it in a more timely manner in the
future.  If you have anything for me, please contact me at
ZahringerK at missouri.edu.  Regrettably, I will no longer be a subscriber
to the CAUT list; I have my hands full with graduate school.

My best to you all,
Ken Zahringer, RPT

Used to be:
Piano Technician
School of Music
University of Missouri

But now I'm:
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Department of Economics
University of Missouri



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