Piano Size & Shape

[John Delacour]

At 9:22 AM -0800 12/2/01, Delwin D Fandrich wrote:

>Well, let's not blame it all on the basic principle of the overstrung grand
>design. Let's bame it on the excessive exuberance of those early advocates
>of over stringing. The basic idea does have some merit--just as does the
>basic idea of flat stringing.

These excess exuberants must all have been American!  Without 
mentioning stick-in-the-muds like Broadwood, the early European 
overstrungs from say Blüthner, Kaps, Becker and several others are 
hardly any more than a nod in the direction of overstringing and 
generally had a minimal effect on the compactness and grace of the 
straight-strung designs.  Blüthner was very sceptical throughout and 
made both.  He was a relative late-comer to the scene and presumably 
had to compete.  So far as I know, Kirkman never made an overstrung.

>... Chickering--angled
>all of the strings from C-88 down--toward the center of the board.
>Acoustically this worked quite well, as it also did aesthetically. But the
>bridge suffered: With a high tension scale--say much of anything above 150
>lbs or so--stress on the terminating bridge pins proved to be a problem.
>Every one I've seen has had bridge pins splitting the bridge cap. With a
>material such as the Delignit beech laminate this could probably be solved,
>but at the time it seemed to be an insurmountable problem that only over
>stringing could solve.

I don't think so.  Overstringing was introduced on squares and the 
basic idea migrated to the grand at a time when Steinway and others 
were able to present a real loud threat to the European makers.  The 
Steinway sound was associated in the public mind with the overstrung 
design; therefore other pianos were probably inferior because they 
were straight strung; therefore they had to be overstrung.  Broadwood 
would not and paid the price; Bechstein and Blüthner played the game. 
The straight strung grand will also have been associated in the 
public mind with the straight-strung upright, which generally 
speaking was a heap of rubbish cheaply produced in hundreds of 
horrible shops.  Even so, Bechstein, Blüthner, Kirkman, Brinsmead, 
Lipp and others continued to make good straight strungs into 20th 
century.  That's another matter, because I would not reintroduce the 
ss upright, but the grand was cut off before its time.  Anyway that's 
my guess from the little history I know.

I don't understand the bit about the terminating bridge pins.  How 
did this converging scale change anything.

>The modern piano--whether it be
>flatstrung or overstrung--needs to go on a diet.

I quite agree but so did quite a few of the old ones.  There are very 
few classics of piano design and the general lack of design sense in 
most makers since 1918 is surprising, since there are plenty of 
graceful models to follow and improve on from the previous age.

JD