The Steinway Bell Patent

Richard Brekne Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
Sat, 14 Sep 2002 22:10:50 +0200


Hmmm..

I am quite unconvinced that the origional intent of this device has no validity
myself. First of all the thing was invented about 120 years ago, and I have a hard
time understanding that Teddy would  just make up some nonsensical reason for
patenting this thing. Marketing back then as an explaination..??? Not ! A bold
faced lie ??? What for ?  Complete ignorance of what he was really doing ?  Come
on.

No... it seems much more likely that the fellow observed that the plate was
flexible and reacted to string pressure and contrived this device to physically
stabilize the plate in this area. It also seems quite possible if not likely that
the tone enhancement was noticed in the course of experimentation and was not part
of the origional intent. At least its easy enough to read the patent wording and
get this impression.

Now I dont mean by any of this that it doesnt actually function more as a mass
coupler after the description Del gives..... No... his reasoning seems sound
enough and explains well enough the "tone enhancement" Teddy mentions in his
patent.  But the patent does clearly claim that the plate has an upward pressure
exerted on it by the strings, and the bolt from the top of the plate to this bell
would clearly provide some resistance to such presure should it be there in the
first place.

I am going to make sure and corner Klaus Fenner whilst he's here and ask him what
he thinks about this.

As far as the circle of sound is concerned..... I still havent seen any
argumentation that really explains what the thing is really supposed to be in the
first place..... nor any satisfactory refutation of its existance. I remember two
discussions we had that seemed to conclude at mustually exclusive points relative
to the how much vibration gets past the aggraffes.

I also find it very interesting to see what a contact microphone picks up when
attached to a tuning hammer, which is sitting on a tuning pin when playing the
respective note, and a few notes well away from it. Dont really know what I am
looking at.... but its certainly there... :)

Cheers !

RicB


Phillip Ford wrote:

> I imagine it must have some mysterious, Steinwayesque function.  It's probably
> part of the magic circle of sound.  Oops, lost my head there for a second...
> It is curious that they chose to use it since a beam would probably be
> cheaper.  Perhaps marketing explains it, but I doubt CFT Steinway was that
> taken in by his own PR.  I had an AB Chase concert grand that had a bell of a
> different design.  Similar to the Steinway bell but it spanned over to the
> belly rail, like a beam.  It was made of cast iron, was quite massive, and a
> nosebolt went down to it.  I was mystified as to why they chose to use this
> since it seemed to be serving the function of a beam, but would be more
> expensive (I would think).  Does the cast iron have some magical property that
> wood doesn't have for this application?  Could it perhaps be the mass?
>
> Phil F

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
UiB, Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html



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