Voicing and Inharmonicity

[Les Smith]

Hi, Robert.

Your's is anything but a simple question. Piano manufacturers, tech-
nicians and pianists themselves have been struggling with the con-
cept of tone QUALITY literally since the days of Christophori. The
concept of tone quality is relative to both the pianist, the listener,
and the type of music being played. Simplifying, a jazz pianist is
more likely to prefer the sound of a Yamaha, compared with that of
of a Steinway that has been voiced for say the Chopin Nocturne in Db.
The concert pianist playing that nocturne will NEVER be satisfied with
the Yamaha, no matter what the the technician does to the hammer in the
way of voicing. Tone quality is dependent on many more factors than
simply where the string is struck and how the hammer has been voiced.
Don't misunderstand me, skilled voicing can to much to improve, of
change the sound of a given instrument, but it will NEVER, EVER make
a Yamaha, or a Kawai, or a Young-Chang, or a Samick sound like a Stein-
way! Never.

	Nevertheless, the technician can to much to improve the tone
quality of a given instrument. It's just that there a numerous fac-
tors affecting tone-quality that are "built in" to the piano and there-
fore over which he has no control. Two factors over which he does have
control are the striking point of the hammer (assumimng he's replacing
the entire set) and the "voicing" of the hammer striking the string.
Since in most situations you won't be replacing the hammers and therefore
won't have any control over the striking points, your primary way of
controlling the tone-quality of a given instrument is through "voicing"
the hammers.

	It has been said that to study the history of the development
of the piano, is to study the search for three things: an instrument
that would stand in tune; an action that would provide for flawless
repetition; and a soulful, sustained, singing quality of tone. The
full cast iron plate, provided for the first; the invention of the
repetition lever provided for the second; and the efforts of Stein-
way, Knabe, Chickering, George Steck and others, during the 19th
century helped to define the latter. Although pianos, pianists, the
music and the way it is played has changed greatly over the last cen-
tury, many of those old, superbly-crafted instruments remain today to
remind us of the way things used to be. It used to be better. Much
better. (Hey, I'm an old guy. I'm entitled to my opinion!)

	What constitutes good tone-quality? Would you like to give
that one a shot? In term of concert-quality instruments; that is the
very best of the best that were produced during the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, good tone quality --defined from the voicers
standpoint--as a mixture of fundamental and partial tones, was defined
as a tone that consisted of at least 50% of the fundamental and then
steadily decreasing amounts of the first eight partials. Anything above
the eighth partial was considered undesireable.

	What partials are excited when the hammer hits the string is
determind not only by its striking point, but also by its density. And
that IS something the technician can control. Simply put, the harder
the hammer, the more quickly it will rebound from the string; The more
quickly it rebounds, the more the higher, unwanted partials will be
excited. Conversely, the softer the hammer is, the longer it will
"cling" to the string before rebounding. As the softer hammer clings
to the string, it dampens the higher, unwanted partials, and thus
emphasizes the lower, more desireable partials.

	So the degree of hardness of softness of a hammer affects not
so much the frequencies of the of the many partials coming off a given
fundamental tone  as it does their prominence. There are MANY more fac-
tors influencing tone quality that were considered and built in to the
best late 19th and early 20th century concert-quality instruemnts and
even though they are beyond the control of the voicing technician it's
probably good to keep in mind that they too were influenced by the
earlier mentioned working definition of good tone-quality.

	It's a complicated subject, to be sure. Everyone has their own
idea of constitues "good" tone quality and, as I said, modern pianos
and modern tastes have changed considerably. Personally, when considering
the concept of tone-quality, I think it's a good idea to look back, once
in  a while, to the instruments Steinway, Knabe, Chickering, Weber and
Steck, and others were producing a century ago. In those days, when the
likes of Yamaha, Kawai, Young-Chang and Samick were just bad dreams that
had not yet come true, America produced more pianos than the rest of the
world combined. And we set a standand of excellence amoung our finest in-
struments for the rest of the world. We led. They followed. Far behind.
Those days are long gone now, but once in a while it pays to look back
and remember how things used to be. They used to be better. Especially
in terms of tone quality. Listen. Judge for yourself.

Les Smith     (Occasionally accused of being opinionated :-))
lessmith@buffnet.net









On Sun, 9 Mar 1997, Robert Scott wrote:

> There seems to be myth that holds that inharmonicity is affected by
> voicing.  I would like to resolve this issue one way or the other.  Can
> anyone report on an actual measurement of inharmonicity that they
> made that shows a difference in the number of cents of inharmoncity
> depending on how the string is struck?  My own experiments show
> no difference between striking the string with a felt hammer or using
> a light tap from a wooden paint stirring stick.  In both cases the pitch
> of the fundamental and all the partials remained the same.  Now I
> realize that the strength of the various partials depends a lot on how
> and where the string is struck.  But if a partial is measureable, it
> always shows up at exactly the same frequency, at least in my
> experience.  What do the rest of you say?
>
>  -Bob Scott
>   Ann Arbor, Michigan
>
>