birdcages

[Clark]

Richard Brekne wrote:

> That being said we have to remember that almost none of us has ever seen a
> birdcage in top notch working order... with brand new parts prepared and
> regulated by an expert who was willing to use the time neccessary to do such a
> job.
>
> I have seen such a piano and it was quite nice to play on, and damped very well
> indeed, so again its damping was definatly not the dry sort.

I know of two more of such beasties underway, and I'm in possession of a model of
their new actions. This is older (1840's Pleyel) and rather than felt dampers it has
layered cloth.

One, um, _interesting_ birdcage I had the pleasure of working on recently had the
'end-grain' of the felt against the strings in a fashion similar to the older cloth
dampers - nice idea, anyways. I like its action, but the WD-40 treatment it had
received made it a little more cumbersome, but I was perplexed by the very long,
damped waste-lengths that could have utilized the Harmonic Swell, which by 1905 (or
environs) must have lapsed its patent. ;)

I've been laughing about the paradigmatic shifts between overdampers and
underdampers respectively in antique European uprights and grands. I remember
something from Harding's _The Piano-Forte_ about some preference toward worse
damping, either in English or Viennese grand actions. My all-time favorite comment
on damping, from Hubbard, was a description of muselaar virginals (ca. 1/3
string-length plucking and damping points) GRUNTING LIKE PIGS, and remember that
these Ruckers instruments had the all-time best harpsichord dampers.

Noone has mentioned the advantage in bird-cage over-dampers which is unachorda; the
action can shift independently of the dampers. In bichord instruments with good
damping this precludes muting.

Clark