screw-stringers

[Geoff Sykes]

For the January meeting of the Los Angeles chapter, Lothar Kiesche and Mathias Konig, of Schimmel pianos, (fresh from the NAMM show in Anaheim), gave us a presentation on how; "A few years back, Schimmel made the decision to re-engineer their entire line of pianos, completely re-engineering them from scratch." In their presentation they explained their design and development process and showed us how they are using todays so-called modern technology to re-evaluate and re-design not only soundboard and case design but also strings and all they involve. So, I just wanted to jump in and say that it appears that the piano is, in fact, still evolving. Too bad there is nothing yet on their website about this work.

-- Geoff
Los Angeles


-----Original Message-----
From: Delwin D Fandrich <fandrich@pianobuilders.com>
Sent: Mar 9, 2005 1:35 PM
To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org>
Subject: RE: screw-stringers



| -----Original Message-----
| From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org]On
| Behalf Of Porritt, David
| Sent: March 09, 2005 11:42 AM
| To: Pianotech
| Subject: RE: screw-stringers
|
|
| What I was trying to say (but didn't very well) is that pianos evolved
| throughout the 19th century, but stagnated in the 20th.  The current
| scale Steinway B was designed in 1884.  Do some think that this is the
| apex of development and we shouldn't get away from it?
|
| dp
|
| David M. Porritt
| dporritt@smu.edu


According to a conversation I had with Mr John Steinway in the mid-1970s the
Steinway company had perfected the basic design of the piano by approximately
1932 and there was nothing left to develop. There was really no need for the
Steinway company to continue on with their R&D department except to adapt the
occasional new material and, perhaps, some new tool. About the only thing left
for their competitors was to copy the Steinway design as best they could.

Del


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