A lot of things about string terminations have bugged me for some time. Ron Overs (who I respect) promotes hardening of the capo bar, yet the agraffe is a relatively soft material (brass). The difference is that the capo is straight and the agraffe is round. Wouldn't the agraffe last longer if it were heavily plated with chrome, nickel or?? Oh I forgot, piano techs love brass, felt and wood. Now under normal circumstances, the piano string is terminated (pivoted) on the top surface of the agraffe. Let's call that North. Let's call the bottom of the agraffe South. The other two surfaces would be called east and west. At the bridge, the string is terminated at maybe SSE (south south east). Wapin claims that their vertical bridge pin encourages the string to vibrate in the horizontal direction quicker before the energy has been dissipated in the vertical mode and hence -longer sustain. Let's make it a given that the impact of the hammer is in a northern direction. Stuart of Australia claims that their bridge termination increases the vertical vibration of the string. Hmmmm? How does that effect the sustain???? My esteemed colleuge from one of the fly over states suggests that a string starts out vibrating vertically, slowly starts to drift horizontally but never gets to true horizontal. He also suggests that a string tends to vibrate at 90 degrees of its termination. I want to find out if that is true. I don't really know, but it has been my assumption (maybe in error) that the string vibrated vertically, slowly drifts elliptically, approaches horizontal, then elliptically in the other direction and then returns to vertical at a much lower level. This would then be a cyclical phenomenon. Sorry for the flurry of five dollar words. I've been thinking of a new bridge termination scheme for rebuilding but I'm not going to proceed till I answer a basic question. Here's my question: A vibrating string has two terminations. It is excited in the northern direction. (Ignore the strike point) What effect on tone will be the termination of the two ends of the string????? Both north, one north and the other south, east or west???? Or no big difference?? I have recently found plans on the net to build an led stroboscope. I will build this and look at a string under vibration. I could stretch a wire across my garage and look at it with different terminations. If some of you deep thinkers have an answer to my question that makes common sense, I won't have to do this. Give me your feedback. Thanks
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