Straube grand

[Delwin D Fandrich]

Ron Nossaman wrote:

> .... the Straube was a new one on me. It was a four foot something-or-barely
> with
> three bridges. The bass and tenor bridges were in relatively normal and
> expected places, but the third bridge was like an extension to the low end
> of the bass bridge, and was behind the tenor with it's strings running
> between the tenor and bass string planes! That's three layers of strings at
> the crossover. The bass was entirely monochords (about a dozen) and at an
> extreme angle to the belly bar. I assume that's why they were all
> monochords, I don't think you could have gotten any bichords in there at
> that angle without the hammers hitting adjacent strings. The transition
> bridge had two monochords, presumably to acoustically blend the transition
> (didn't work), and another four or so bichords. The low tenor bridge had the
> beloved hockey stick curve at the end with another three or four bichords
> before the plain trichords started. Altogether, it didn't sound or tune any
> better or worse than any other funky little grand. It was sort of tubby and
> clangy, all at once, but it was sure weird looking. Has anyone else seen on
> of these? How many of them are out there?
>  Ron

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Not a Straube, but there was a little Broadwood (approx. 4.5 ft, or 137 cm) that
we put a board in a couple of years back that was configured just like this.  An
additional note -- on the Broadwood there was only one row of bridge pins on the
mono-chord bridge.  Half of the string flared to the bass side and half to the
tenor side.  Overall the stress on the bridge was neutral.  It worked far better
than it had any right to.  The little thing sounded quite credible.

Del