Back in the days when I rebuilt pianos, 1985-1992, not a very long period but long enough to learn a lot by doing it and the most important thing I learned was that I didn't want that to be my primary business, I had the occasion to refigure the plain wire scales of many, many pianos, both grand and upright. If it was a known scale such as a Steinway, I did what other technicians advised, "Don't change it! The Steinway is sacred!" There were some others that had known scales as well. I used the John Travis book, "A Guide to restringing" and looked for the information. It also had a rudimentary way of figuring a scale if it did not.
But there were many other grands, some of them very nice like a Haddorff, Ivers & Pond, Grinnel Bros., Waltham, etc., and many large verticals (which I somehow liked to string even more than the grands), such as a Wing & Sons, P.A. Starck, Whitney (very old) and others of whom I do not remember all of the names but even one more recently made Cable Console that had been in a fire, so it needed restringing.
Sometime during that period, James H. Donelson, R.T.T. (as we were known then) compiled a book of treble string tensions and other characteristics (breaking point, inharmonicity between 1st & 2nd partial), etc. It was a book that had nothing but numbers in it. You would measure the speaking length of each plain wire unison, starting at C88 and descending downward until you reached the lowest.
For each note, there was a list of possibilities. For C88, for example, it would tell you what you would get anywhere from size 12 to 14 wire. It would only list the sizes of wire that the author considered to be possibilities. From that, you could plot out how many unisons you would have of a certain size wire before you changed to the next half size.
I recall an old technician in our Chapter who was originally from NYC telling me that I didn't need to do that. He said, "All you need to do is put 6 unisons of 13, 4 unisons of 13 1/2, six of 14, four of 14 1/2 until you get down to 17, then put 8 17's and 8 18's and if it goes further than that, use size 19." I asked him what was the logic in that and he replied, "There is no logic! It's tradition". Somehow, I think he may have been right about that in many cases. There wasn't any logic to it. That is just what they did.
The Donelson book (before most of us were using computers) provided a way to greatly improve the scales of all of those pianos. It wasn't about creating a high, moderate or low tension scale, it was about what actually fit the piano. I could greatly even out both tension and inharmonicity but the patterns of how many notes would have one size of wire versus another was rarely that 6-4 pattern. Sometimes, across the break from the treble to the midrange, the size of wire actually decreased for a couple of unisons the way you see it in some Baldwin grands.
I would get combinations such as 2 13's, 6 13 1/2's, 4 14's, 8 14 1/2's, 2 15's, 8 15 1/2's, 6 16's, 6 16 1/2's, 4 17's and 4 17 1/2's, 4 18's, 4 19's and 2 20's, maybe 2 21's. The Whitney upright turned out to be what I would call the lowest overall tension scale but that piano had the mellowest tone I ever heard from an upright and it stayed in tune beautifully. It was acquired by one of the refinishers in the shop and he put it in his home and raised several children who all learned to play on it.
There were a few times when I put an odd number of wire sizes, such as 3 or 5 and created a tie off to solve the problem. I simply took the two differently sized wires and made a double string tie-off knot. You would have to look very closely to even see it. The book was the deciding factor. I could either have a large jump in tension and inharmonicity or I could have a very smooth one by doing the double string tie-off.
I often used size 17 1/2 wire where many pianos skip that size but I don't recall ever using any half sizes beyond size 18. The very low tenor always became a challenge. Most any piano would have some pretty flabby wire on it for the notes, B2 and C3. There were a few of those that I converted the two lowest notes to bi-chords on the verticals with large, size 21 wire. They perhaps could have used wound strings but at the time, not knowing how to figure that, I went with that decision and I was pleased with the results.
The Cable Console was one that most often had the four lowest strings of the tenor as wound string bi-chords but this one did not. It was all plain wire down to F3. The book was telling me that the 8 lowest unisons were needing some very hefty wire to keep up some reasonable tension but I feared that those notes would sound too loud and brassy, so I converted them to 2-string unisons. I recall as I put size 21 wire on F3 and plucked it to bring it up to 1/2 step low in pitch for the moment, it "barked". The assistant who was helping me looked at me and said, "That sounds terrible!" I replied that it sounded as I expected it would at this point.
To this day, I still tune that little piano. If you play downward from middle C and across the break to the wound strings, you really cannot tell where it changes from plain wire to wound strings! I simply drove in a tuning pin in the center hole but left it blank, having wire only on the two outside tuning pins, so the appearance stays virtually the same. Nobody really looks at that closely anyway except the technician. It was actually the only piano I ever sold in my entire career. I got it for nothing from the fire damaged home. The other guys in the shop refinished it. I cleaned up the action and restrung it and sold it to a dealer for $600. He sold it for $900 and it is still in use today.
Then, there was a Steinway Model L, built in 1965 in a campus residence house (a very nice place where only French is spoken). I had lived there as a grad student and began caring for it after I went into business as a piano technician in 1978. It was a very nice sounding piano but was always very difficult to keep in tune. Over the years, I observed the scales of many, many pianos and saw that a few, here and there, dared to put some heavier wire in the low tenor than most. In my opinion, the choice was always better than putting flabby wire there. It was easier to tune and it stayed in tune better because it had more tension on it. If anything, all those unisons needed was a little more aggressive voicing to tone them down a bit.
In 2015, the Steinway L's Teflon action parts were thoroughly worn out. It was then 50 years old. The short hammer tails were also always very difficult to make go into check, so it took some creative regulation to keep them from double striking. The house has many items of historic furnishings, so the choice of which parts to replace them with was naturally, new parts from the factory in New York where it had been built. I also used a stock set of Bass strings and while I certainly do think that the low Bass could be improved with some double wrapped strings (as the sister Boston piano of the same size has), I went with them.
But during most of those 37 years of caring for that piano, I was telling myself if I ever got to restring this piano, I was going to do something other than put 8 unisons of size 18 wire from B2 to F#3. The opportunity came and although I had not fully restrung a piano in many years, I dug out the old Donelson book. I first plotted out what was on there. Then, I saw where I could make many improvements. While many unisons did stay the same, that 6-4 pattern was changed substantially.
I pretty much knew I was not going to put 10 unisons of size 17 wire on there. As it turns out, I started with size 17 a couple of unisons earlier but also put 6 unisons of size 17 1/2 on it. F3 and F#3 remained size 18 wire but D#3 and E3 got size 19, C#3 and D3 got size 20 and B2 and C3 got size 21. These were always what I had figured I would do and they turned out to be the right decision.
It should be noted that the B2 with size 18 wire was not even in the book. It was not even considered to be a possibility! So, you can imagine that if you measured the characteristics of the wolfish sounding B2 of a Yamaha GH1, how far off the charts it would be. Because of my new pattern, I switched the tie-off in the treble section from one end to the other.
Of course, the New York hammers were as soft as pillows, even though the factory told me they were pre-lacquered. I had the same experience with three other sets of NY hammers and I did have voicing training at the Steinway factory, so I expected that and knew what to do. I had to do some shaping but I certainly didn't want to file off too much felt from more than a thousand dollars worth of hammers. I really had to load up the high treble with some hardener just to get any kind of tone out of them and the treble somewhat less so and the Bass, just a little. The high tenor took just a little but as I got down to about Middle C, I put no hardener.
The result was like it was with that Cable Console. You really cannot hear the transition from plain wire to wound strings! The highest wound strings sound very bright but now, the lowest tenor matches it without doing anything at all to the hammers except a cursory shaping. The low tenor and the entire piano now sounds much more even and stays much better in tune for much longer than it used to. Still, it sounds like the same piano. The appearance is also unaffected unless, as a very experienced technician, you might notice that the low tenor has slightly fatter looking wire.
The house has record books of all of its paintings and fine, historic furniture. There is an appraisal of the piano that had been done many years ago in that book. So, the invoices for the genuine Steinway parts are all a part of the record. When I cleaned the plate, it erased the scaling decals. I did not put new decals there since I am the only technician who has serviced that piano for nearly 40 years and I intend to continue for many more. I plan to put the scaling decals on the piano before I retire, however. I may also place into the record, before and after photos of the general clean up and new strings. I may also put into the record, the chart of the re-scaling decisions that I made.
At first, I was not going to tell anybody because I didn't want to hear, "You, YOU messed around with the scaling of a STEINWAY!!!??? Who do you think you are, anyway!?" I had, some years ago, spoken to some technicians about the idea and of course, they all advised against it. It was another one of those, "wouldn't work, couldn't work and shouldn't be tried" ideas that I have found out from experience is actually worth trying.
But now, two years later and seeing that the entire house is very happy with the piano, particularly the director and some performing artist salon concerts are planned for the 75th anniversary year in 2018, and seeing this topic about inharmonicity, low tenor deficiencies (as well as other deficiencies in plain wire scaling), I thought it would be a good time to say, "Yes, I did it and I am glad to say that what I knew I could do for it actually worked and worked very well."
As for the Yamaha GH-1, there were some models of that piano built with 8 (I think, at least 6) wound string bi-chords in the low tenor. During that same period when I was rebuilding, Yamaha actually offered a kit of wound strings and some hitch pins to convert the low tenor of those instruments. There was one piano teacher client of mine back then who complained of the low tenor in her piano not sounding good and always going out of tune quickly. I told her what the problem was and that there was a solution for it.
I did the conversion and she was delighted with the results. She continued to be until she passed away several years ago. I had another client last year who complained of the same thing. I said that there would be a simpler and less costly solution than conversion to wound strings. It would be to simply replace perhaps six to eight of the unisons with a larger size wire. The appearance would not change. The somewhat louder tone could simply be voiced down to match the highest wound strings. She will have that work done in January.
I have also heard that if one did that and the tone were still too loud, a brass impedance weight could be placed on the opposite side of the soundboard under the low tenor bridge. So far, that has not been necessary with the Steinway but it could turn out to be what is needed with the Yamaha. I will just have to judge the results after changing the wire sizes and voicing.
By the way, when using the FAC program of any model SAT, the instructions are to first tune the string to 0.0 (with no offset) as it is read on the respective partial. From this discussion, now I know why that is done. I have heard many technicians say that the inharmonicity changes from one season or year to the next but this is perhaps why that is said. If the piano is at a different pitch from one time to the next, then the inharmonicity will be different, if only by a small amount.
Do other programs say to first tune a string to standard pitch (or the ultimately desired pitch) before sampling for inharmonicity? If they do not, then that would be the very reason for getting different readings after a pitch change, either higher or lower. It would seem to me as well, that if the choice would be to tune the piano at a nonstandard pitch (such as A-442 or A-435), then the SAT should be offset to that pitch first before calculating the FAC program. I rarely use that program but when I do the next time and if I am going to tune the piano to a pitch other than A-440, I will try that.
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William Bremmer
RPT
Madison WI
608-238-8400
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-27-2017 09:52
From: Garret Traylor
Subject: Inharmonicity question
My basic knowledge of Inharmonicity relates to the stiffness of a given length of wire/string. The stiffness and tension of piano wire does not allow all partials to be able to behave the same manner; upper partials are not allowed the freedom to start and finish from the same point.
The inharmonicity does change as the tension of a given string changes. This is generally why a well prepared piano will perform better. I try to express to customers that a piano cannot be tuned until it is (close) in tune.
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Garret Traylor
Trinity NC
336-887-4266
Original Message:
Sent: 09-27-2017 00:18
From: Geoff Sykes
Subject: Inharmonicity question
As I was doing a pitch raise this afternoon I daydreamed about inharmonicity. My thinker asked the question of whether the inharmonicity of a given string at a given length changes when the tension applied to it increases. Or decreases for that matter. In other words, is the inharmonicity of a string determined solely by length and thickness or is the amount of tension applied to it also part of the equation?
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Geoff Sykes, RPT
Los Angeles CA
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