[CAUT] Thank you for Stability advice

[David Love]

I was being a bit facetious about the placebo effect in the sense of
perceived change in tone but not in the sense of a cure for the problem.  I
wasn't really my goal to start a thread on the placebo effect.   That aside,
anytime you change the contact point on the bridge by tapping or pressing or
pulling  or bending you'll likely get some change in the sound.  That change
may be a positive one, or not (it doesn't always work).  If the bridge pin
is notched and is the cause of the tonal problem (which it can be) then
tapping the string down away from that notch can improve things, at least
temporarily.  Eventually, and often quickly, the string will want to
straighten and find its way back to the notch in the bridge pin.  That's why
some people prefer to tap the bridge pin rather than the string (knowingly
or not), because it moves the bridge pin notch down closer to the bridge cap
and  unifies those two contact points.  However, because of the clamping
effect of the pin on the string it can also simply further indent the edge
of the bridge so that during the next humidity cycle the problems will
either reappear or, if the humidity rises, further damage that edge.  So the
question really is whether it's a permanent fix and and/or whether it
doesn't create more problems in the long run by incurring even further
damage to the edge of the bridge top.  My experience is that the fix is at
best temporary, at worst it doesn't work and just encourages more aggressive
tapping operating under the belief that it should work and thereby creating
more problems.  If the problem is flagpolling then it doesn't work because
tapping the pin down won't stop the flagpolling problem.    In that case
there are other remedies that can be considered.  At least that's my take on
it.   

 

David Love

www.davidlovepianos.com

 

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Sturm
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 10:40 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Thank you for Stability advice

 

On Feb 8, 2010, at 12:41 PM, David Love wrote:





The placebo effect refers generically to the patient believing that a fix
has been administered. 

snip



Why should strings need to be encouraged to touch the bridge surface when
you have bridge pins at a 20 degree angle clamping them to the bridge.  If
the bridge is indented at the edge from aggressive string seating or cycles
of expansion and squeezing the string against the bridge pin and the bridge
top I suppose a massage of the string might push it down against the bridge
surface temporarily, but it's likely to be pretty temporary.  

 

Hi David,

            A fair number of people believe that tapping bridge pins and
"seating strings" on the bridge (by various means) has a positive sonic
effect. Maybe 15-20 years or so ago, when somebody writing in the PTJ was
promoting, I did a fair bit myself, and can testify that it often gave
obvious results. And there are still a number of people teaching these
techniques (I think Bill Spurlock continues to teach lightly tapping pins,
and Wally Brooks recommends tapping strings, for example). And I think they
are right in saying that it has an effect, not just "in the mind" as is
implied by the word placebo: in many cases, the tone color is cleaned up and
false beats are reduced or eliminated. I also agree with you that it is
temporary. 

            Seems that many of those who swear by these various techniques
do it as a matter of course, every time they see the piano. Hmmmm. Looks
like a vicious cycle to me. I don't think it has to be all that aggressive
to create the condition where there will be a recurring gap between string
and bridge surface at the notch, resulting in recurring sonic results. 

            The problematic mental image is the notion that strings "ride
up" bridge pins and need to be re-seated. This is the concept Ron N has
spent so much effort trying to combat, with limited success. Strings could
certainly ride up vertical bridge pins, other conditions being favorable
(could possibly be an issue with Wapin, for instance), but not angled pins
in the standard configuration.

            In any case, I don't think the word placebo is appropriate. I
would describe it instead as giving a drug which masks symptoms, but has a
long term effect of exacerbating the condition.

            Otherwise, I agree with your assessment. 

Regards,

Fred Sturm

University of New Mexico

fssturm at unm.edu

 

 

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100209/6db0ae94/attachment-0001.htm>