Mason & Hamlin AA scale.

[Ron Nossaman]

>Now I understand what you mean. It is indeed a good thing, I would guess
>that it is the most effective in smaller pianos.
>What piano is the one in your drawing?

Yes, it is. A lot of this sort of stuff is most effective in smaller 
pianos. This happens to be a Young Chang I made drawings of some time back 
to have something to help me visualize when I'm playing "what if".


>I still think that the easiest way of making a soundboard that is  best
>suited for the impedance requirements of the scale would be with a straight
>strung design.

Probably.


>But not the conventional ones, because those place the end of
>the bass bridge too close to the rim, and kill the bass (if the soundboard
>isn't cut free at that point - a "floating soundboard").

An altogether great idea, that bass float.


>If you are interested, I could send you a few sketches of straight, oblique
>and overstrung grands, that I made to understand things better.

Sure.


>Ron, when does one switch from bichords to single wound strings when
>designing a scale? When a certain diameter is achieved or?

When the break% of the highest monochord gets too high. At least that's my 
primary criteria.


>And thanks a lot for explaining things and sending the drawing. It is most
>interesting.
>By the way, I have published a small article about a string termination
>experiment to my website (link is below, click on the piano picture). I
>would appreciate your comments.
>
>Regards,
>
>  Calin Tantareanu

Your results were pretty much what I'd expect. What you simulated was a 
string with two front duplexes, using agraffes instead of a capo. The 
vibrating string rocks on the agraffe (capo) and activates the duplex 
section(s) courtesy of the stiffness of the wire. Muting the duplexes damps 
that rocking motion and, again courtesy of the wire stiffness, damps the 
speaking length too. Long tuned duplexes are noisy, and short ones aren't. 
And yes, angle is very important. No surprises. It's the stuff that's been 
discussed on list a bunch of times. Something I always thought was 
interesting if useless was plucking the front duplex section - even the 
very short and very un-tuned ones - and hearing the fundamental come from 
the speaking length.

Ron N