[pianotech] inharmonicity in piano wire

Bruce Dornfeld bdornfeld at earthlink.net
Wed Feb 11 20:19:06 PST 2009


The sound of a piano is, as we all know, a very complicated system.  The inharmonicity does not come from the piano wire alone.  If you bow (if your violin bow doesn't fit, rosin up a scrap of old felt) a piano string, the inharmonicity will be less than striking the string with a piano hammer!  The formulas we have for inharmonicity in a piano do not show these things; they assume the piano will have felt hammers, bridges and a soundboard fixed on all sides.  How much these other things influence inharmonicity, I don't know, but the image we like to hold in our mind to understand it normally simplifies things too much.    


Bruce Dornfeld, RPT
bdornfeld at earthlink.net
North Shore Chapter
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