Inharmonicity

[Delwin D Fandrich]

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Ron Nossaman wrote:

> Hi Bob,
>
> Boy, I wish this were the case! The problem is continuity. A species evolves
> by the weeding out of the less viable characteristics and attributes by
> attrition. Something eats the unworthy, un-wary, and dim. If they remain
> un-eaten, they freeze, starve, fail to breed, or go into government service
> (or some such similar evolutionary dead end). Pianos, unfortunately, don't
> "evolve" by a similar set of criteria. Each one was designed by an engineer
> who started from scratch a mere thirty to sixty years ago.

Ah, would that this were only true. Some of our most revered pianos trace their design history back
more like a hundred plus years. And all too many other "new" pianos are essentially copies of other
pianos that also date back that far. I know... You were being generous.

> Did you ever meet
> an engineer who admired, embraced, and refined the work of all those who
> have gone before? EVERY one I ever met seems to be convinced that all those
> other clowns haven't got a clue how anything works and his/her opinions are
> the only ones with any validity. Consequently, the same mistakes are
> repeated again and again with endless variations. Evolution, in the piano
> industry, happens in fits and starts as individual engineers introduce
> features into their designs that other engineers consider worth stealing and
> IMPROVING UPON. It isn't right unless it's theirs, you see. In all due
> fairness, this built in attitude is what enables/drives them to become
> engineers in the first place so it ain't all bad.

Actually, yes I have. I've known several piano engineers with a great respect for the work done by
their predecessors. That doesn't imply that they thought that all of the work done by those
predecessors was necessarily the last word in the development of the piano. But much can be learned
by studying the work of those who have gone before in light of what is known today. Hindsight has a
way of sharpening one's "vision."


> Compound all this with the
> near certainty that the piano wasn't designed with a "free hand", but rather
> under a set of defined manufacturing criteria so restrictive as to make it
> impossible to fit anything other than a design monstrosity into the
> available slot. That, superficially covers the genesis of the piano.

Yes, well... while this may be true to some extent, isn't it reasonable for the piano manufacturer
-- he is, after all, the one who is paying the bills -- to insist that the designers and the
engineers develop something that he can actually build and fit into his product line? Designers are
dreamers by nature. Out of those dreams can come some marvelous ideas, but if the manufacturer wants
a nice 5'8" grand that will sell in the $25,000 range and the designer gives him a 7'6" piano that
will cost $42,000 to build -- wholesale -- it won't do either of them much good.


> Then it
> comes into our shop. We, with the same attitude of superiority the engineer
> labors under but (usually) without the technical education, undertake to
> improve the instrument by applying our own enlightened beliefs and attitudes
> to this poor deprived product of the Troglodyte's art. Sometimes we do,
> other times, not. Odds are, however, that we learned what we think we know
> by our own process of trial and error (and error) more than by drawing on
> the accumulated wisdom of those who have gone before. After all, their
> situations were different, therefor their accumulated knowledge doesn't
> apply, right? By the time we become old and experienced enough to recognize
> and validate some of this accumulated wisdom, we quit working and die, or
> the other way around, without managing to pass on all this hard won
> knowledge to the next generation. After all, their situation is entirely
> different than yours was, and they have very little use for fossilized
> information.

I would certainly hope that this also is not entirely true although I realize that to some extent it
probably is. Most of those that I know who are seriously interested in improving the piano as we
know it today are serious students of the past efforts of our predecessors. (And, no, I don't mean
to include all of those who are simply able to write out a check for a rescaling software package
and are then able to consider themselves to be scale designers.) A few have also made at least some
effort to pass on what has been learned along the way -- although doing so has not been easy. If you
want a really interesting and challenging project, try convincing the PTG Technical Institute
Committee that a few really advanced classes should be taught at the National Convention. Well, you
try it...I'm no longer interested in that particular struggle.

> Our species has come a long way, from an evolutionary
> standpoint, but we'll never get anywhere as long as each individual must
> start from scratch at birth. How can a product designed by an un lightened,
> narrow-minded individual of such an un-finished and fundamentally faulty
> species who just got into the business last Tuesday, be anything but
> somewhat less than optimal? So why not dink with it? How's that for an
> opinion? %)
>
> Ron

It obviously can't be. But fortunately that's not the way it works in real life. Not everybody is
un-enlightened and narrow-minded. And not everyone got into the business just last Tuesday. Some of
us came on Monday. Besides, I remain convinced that one of the most formidable obstacles to the
ongoing development of the piano is not the designer, or even that obstinate and disgustingly
practical manufacturer, it is the piano technician in the field who is unwilling to accept anything
new in his favorite instrument. I've sat through too many meetings in which what I thought were good
ideas were set aside because of concern that they, no matter how good the end result, the product
would not be accepted by piano technicians and that the resulting criticism would hurt the product's
sales potential. Now, I'll be the first to admit that not every new idea or concept that has been
introduced into the marketplace has been perfect. In fact, some of them have been rather disastrous.
But, the only way to avoid making any mistakes at all is to do nothing. And that is the biggest
mistake of all.

Regards,

-- ddf

"Conventional Wisdom is an Idiot."

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