double-wound strings

[Stephen Airy]

What do you think is better in a piano with a 142cm
speaking length on low A?  Singles all the way
through, or doubles from notes 1 to 10 and singles
(bichords) from 11 to 27, like the piano I'm talking
about is now?

--- John Delacour <JD@Pianomaker.co.uk> wrote:
> At 5:19 PM -0500 12/8/01, Clyde Hollinger wrote:
> 
> >I posted this question a couple days ago and got no
> helpful answers.
> >While tuning a 1956 Baldwin F grand piano I noticed
> it had no
> >double-wound strings.  Single-wound strings the
> whole way to the
> >bottom.  How common is this?  I haven't noticed it
> before.
> 
> It's very common, and the further you go back in
> time the more common 
> it is.  All Steinways until the S was introduced had
> single-covered 
> strings all the way down and all Bechsteins before
> the A (6'0"). 
> These two makers seem to have made it a point of
> religion.  Many 19th 
> century German makers did the same, but the
> double-covered string was 
> common even before 1850 in England (eg. Broadwood)
> on both uprights 
> and grands.  There was generally a practice of
> taking the bichords 
> further down in the scale.  Yamaha and Kawai only 20
> years ago were 
> faithfully following the Steinway religion and the
> first Kawai GS-30s 
> I sold came in with all single-covered.  These went
> straight in the 
> bin and I put on my scale.  Quite soon after that,
> they began to 
> scale the piano better.
> 
> No absolute rule can be made, and a good example is
> the Steinway 
> Miniature.  This piano has a bottom string only 137
> cm. long with a 
> 25 core and a 210 cover.  You'd think you could do
> better than that 
> and use a thinner core with a double cover to get
> more tension in the 
> string, a purer harmonic content and more power.  In
> fact, it makes 
> very little difference.
> 
> However, very roughly speaking, and all other things
> being equal 
> (which they aint), it would be normal now to use all
> single-covered 
> only on pianos of about 7' and longer and all
> double-covered on a 5' 
> piano and an increasing number of single-covered
> singles between 5' 
> and 7'.  Strings require a certain minimum strain to
> sound the way we 
> like them nowadays and to get this strain, we need
> to put more copper 
> on some than is possible with even the thickest
> cover.
> 
> A thickish single-covered string is considerably
> stiffer than a 
> double-covered string of the same diameter,
> especially than a d/c 
> with a close cover ratio.  This means that the
> fundamental is 
> favoured and the attack is better.  You can play
> bass staccato runs 
> on a Steinway but on something like a Bösendorfer,
> the damper has 
> come down before the string has begun to work
> properly.  There are 
> people, including piano-makers, who will strike a
> bass note and hold 
> it down and take all day to listen to that wonderful
> rich sound as 
> the harmonics sing out and the note sustains for
> half a minute, and 
> say that's the way it should be.  There are others
> who consider that 
> the piano must be manageable and flexible and
> responsive when playing 
> a wide range of music and not just funeral marches
> and church slush.
> 
> I think most people today (because it is partly a
> question of the 
> Zeitgeist) would want as many single-covered strings
> as is consistent 
> with good strain and then (in pianos less than 7') a
> few 
> double-covered strings at the bottom to keep up the
> tension and the 
> tone-quality.  However, there have obviously been
> several schools of 
> thought for a long time.  A comparison of a 6'6"
> Blüthner, a 
> Steinway, a Schiedmayer. a Brinsmead, all of say
> 1900 will show four 
> completely different approaches to the question. 
> Nowadays Steinway 
> are out there on their own and even they have
> yielded to 
> double-covered strings on the Model K, after a
> century or so.
> 
> That's just a rough description of the case.  Feel
> free to ask any 
> detailed questions.
> 
> JD
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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