Hello Ron,
Sorry for the delay in response. I have managed to get some
speaking length information on several pianos and pictures of the bridge
placement on the Chickering 121. I also have some more pictures of the
Sohmer agraffe bridge. All will be posted in the next day or so when I
can figure out how to get them out of the camera into the computer.
.
Overs Pianos wrote:
>
snip
I've heard technicians from New Zealand refer to the 6'4" piano as the
long A.
That is what it is called here.
>snip
>. . . With regard to the bass/tenor break there are any number of older
>six-foot American pianos which include anywhere from 25 to 28 notes in
>the bass, although few indeed that go to d30 as you note. Chickering,
>for example, long used 25. I would argue that bridge placement is as
>critical to an effective transistion as is scaling,
Agreed.
snip
The pictures to follow will show the layout of the bridges on the
121; also I may have some of a 123C which is a piano about 13 inches or
so longer.
> and, of course, they
>can be looked at as one and the same from one point of view, and that
a
>blanket condemnation of a bass under 28 or 29 notes is not justified as
>it disregards the effect on the transition of the bridge placement and
>scaling of the tenor.
Not necessarily so. I agree that bridge placement is every bit a
critical as scale with regard to tonal equality at the transition.
But the percentage of breaking strain, and therefore the tuning
stability, will mostly be compromised should a designer choose to
place the lowest plain wire at note B27.
snip
How can you consider this to be anything other than only partially true
as regards tuning stability unless the downbearing pressure is taken
into account? If I understand you correctly you use the percentage of
breaking strain as an indicator of pressure which facilitates
stabiliation of the board as its moisture content varies. If so, it
seems to me to be only partially an effective indicator unless the
downbearing angles, the location of the bridge, the ribbing and the
bearing pressure are taken into account.
By the way I have a similar criticism, for the same reasons, to
the generalization frequently made that a short backscale length
necessarily implies a poor tone through binding down the board. And I
do not find this generally to be the case in my experience as regards
many pianos with a short backscale length. I realize now I forgot to
measure this on the 121 as per your request. I'll get it later.
snip
Even if the bass strings
are set across at a lower angle, pushing the bass bridge at A1
further out into the middle of the tail area, to allow an
un-hockey-sticked long bridge to run up towards the back corner of
the straight side, the longest practical speaking length would be
about 130 cm (51"). This would result in a tension of around 37%,
just slightly higher than the 36% of the D's F21 at 183 cm. While a
131 cm B 27 would work quite well (Kawai KG5s 131.3 cm B27 is proof
of this), I haven't seen such a length in any 6' class of grand piano
to date. The tenor bridged A's F21 at 110.8 cm works quite well with
the chosen covered bichord running at 46%, while its first plain
wire, D30, at 110.5 cm works well also at 37%. But the later A with
its lowest plain strung note, B27, at 114.8 cm and 25% is simply
unsatisfactory
Kudos to the diplomat.
(hows that for diplomacy?). It is this model about
which I have been less than complimentary, not the earlier tenor
bridged version.
So clearly, with regard to tenor bridged 6' pianos, it is quite
possible for them to break at E20 and still maintain a desirably
small deviation of breaking strain % across the scale. Provided of
course, that enough notes are included on the tenor bridge to move
the first plain wire on the long bridge high enough to achieve a
respectable tension. As I mentioned recently in a private post to
fellow pianotech subscriber, I believe that a tenor bridged A could
be transformed into an outstanding instrument if the tenor bridge was
Of course we going to have to disagree here, as I don't think they
have to be rescaled to be a wonderful instrument.
changed to all bichords, and the speaking length of the first
tenor-bridge covered note C#29 was altered so that it was shortened
by only 15% from D 30, instead of the original 25%, and if the bass
bridge was changed for a standard bridge without an apron
(suspension) and A1 was shortened to 135 cm instead of the original
141 cm. It doesn't matter how close a designer places the agraffe of
A1 to the stretcher, 141 cm will position the bridge far too close to
the rim in a 6' piano, and the resultant short back scale will lock
up the board. Yamaha have joined forces with Steinway in proving this
with their latest C3, which now has an A1 which is up from 135 cm to
140. With its shorter backscale, it has a significantly weaker A1
than their earlier C3 model. At least the numbers are bigger for the
sales people. Pity about the tone.
>Chickering had a superior system in this respect, breaking after the
>25th note in the bass but using speaking lengths in the tenor that are
>much longer than the scales of most similarly sized Steinway style
>pianos.
Interesting. Does anybody know what the free back scale length and
speaking length was for this design at note Bfl 26?
snip
Here are some measurements from several pianos.
Chickering 121 (a 5'4" piano) A#1 124.46 cm : A#25 -
108.74: Asharp#26 -114.61: C#40 - 68.73 cm.
Consider:
A Steinway B (85 note
6'10)
C#40- 63.81 cm
A Chickering 141A (9 ft, 1928 more like a
Steinway)
C#40-65.56 cm
This suggests something by way of contrast with the two systems. The
bridge on the 141A is located very similarly to Steinway concert grands,
or follows the Steinway approach, as you will, by which I mean a chord
run from one end of the bass bridge to the other will approximately
parallel the long bridge. You can see in the pictures this is not the
case in the 121, which is also true in numerous other Chickering models,
particularly the evolutionary successors of the 121 - , the 135 and the
125.
Although, it is so in the 141A, this piano was designed to outcompete
the Steinway concert grand - an objective at which they succeeded at
least tonally, in my opinion although the company was forced into
bankruptcy at about this time with the result that the ambitions to
compete with Steinway as well as their remarkable design fecundity at
this period was brought to an end. The Chickering style pianos I refer
to, (I am aware this type of layout occurs on many more European
pianos, and also American ones as well) can be seen to be different in
that the bass bridge can be roughly considered to have had the tenor end
of the bass bridge rotated backwards, relatively speaking, toward the
edge of the board, that is, much nearer the rim while the bass end
remains fixed. In my opinion this produces a better transition,
although there may well be acoustic trade-offs in other areas.
> There is a marked difference between Steinway-style pianos,
>which seems to be the only class of design approaches with which a
>general familiarity is had by most commentators here and referred to
>generally here on the list with mostly negative commentary, and
>Chickering-style which address some of the issues frequently raised
with
>reference to design, particularly the heavily criticized scaling of the
>20 note bass.
>
>For example, the characteristic placement of the bass bridge
>substantially closer to the edge of the board results in Chickering
>pianos with a significantly longer scaling per unit of case in the
upper
>bass while at the same time inducing and tolerating a shortened first
>three or four notes relative to those in similarly sized Steinway
>pianos. The result of this approach, along with an effort made to
>bring the front terminations closer to the stretcher, is that speaking
>lengths, for what is is worth, in a Chickering 121 (a five foot four
>piano) are longer through much of the tenor and at least half of the
>bass wire than on a Steinway O which is c. five foot ten.
Are you saying that Chickering's high bass is positioned closer to
the rim while the low bass is positioned further away, with a longer
back scale?
snip
The 121 has a very short backscale, and a cantilevered bridge(both
the tenor section of the long bridge AND the bass bridge) the 123, with
a virtually identical layout, simply scaled up proportionately to 6'6"
lacks the cantilevers and has a much longer backscale length,
particularly in the bass. As you will see from the pictures all of
the bass of the 121 has a fairly short backscale. I'll get some
pictures shortly of another similarly designed but larger piano I refer
to above, the 123, which has a long backscale.
Unfortunately, there are very few Chickerings or Masons
here in Australia, and most of the Steinways are of German origin.
I personally don't believe one can fully appreciate Steinway
without experience of the North American pianos which I believe, for
whatever reason, have, generally, a much more musical sound, and, in
their original designs from the mid-1880's, a better, more responsive
touch than the European production. (Whoa, you guys in Europe put the
shotguns away.) One can see in numerous old American pianos abundant
indicators of tremendous attention given to every detail, unlike the
present where we have to leave out, when singing praises whether of
things tonal or mechanical, the last 25 or 30 years worth of production
which, in my opinion, is an anomaly, and, certainly, unrepresentative of
the real greatness of Steinway.
would also like to see a scale of the S&S 6'4" A if anyone has it on
a spreadsheet.
> Similar
>contrast can be had with other Chickering models. There are variations
>on this approach also with other manufacturers. Many times some of
>what I read here which purposts to be "novel, new modern scaling"
>approaches, appear, with all due respect, to have been substantially
>anticipated by manufacturers such as Chickering or Mason & Hamlin and
>they appear to get little credit for such.
One of the last spasms of creativity of the dying American piano
industry resulted in several interesting pianos in the 30's and 40's. I
have in the mind the M&H symetrigrand, of which there are also several
other Aeolian-American versions, for example Knabe, and the Chickering
147 console. Later, after I get this other stuff done, I'll get some
pictures of the M&H SG. Although this piano is by no means my favorite
piano design, particularly as it is a very small grand with a tubby
bass, it has a wonderful tenor and treble and is full of interesting
and instructive aspects of the utility of piano design features. In
particular this piano has the most heavily ribbed treble of any piano I
am aware of, indicating a continuity of approach and a conscious
awaresness of the effect of ribbing and bending the board in the treble
as a way of manipulating stiffness and increasing power in this area as
they did, for example, on the BB.
This is frequently represented here as entirely novel, although
not by you, by some who claim an originality in manipulating ribbing and
stiffness in the treble to increase ringtime and power and manipulation
of the flexibility in the bass for tonal reasons, implying this is a new
technique when an examination of these pianos and, others, makes it
readily apparent that factories generations ago experimented with just
such variables on their own lines.
More later,
Regards, Robin Hufford
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