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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
10
OuTTECHNICAL DE&KTMENT
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM BRAID WHITE
IRON PLATES AGAIN
My esteemed correspondent, whom all the
world of piano makers knows so well, George L.
Maitland, of Philadelphia, favors me with the
following comment apropos of the article two
weeks ago on piano plates.
"Dear Mr. White: I am very glad that you
have taken up plates in your article of March
25, for the subject is most interesting to piano
makers. There are two very good reasons why
piano makers should always use plates strong
enough to stand much more strain than is im-
posed by the highest concert pitch. The first
is the pulling of the wooden backs, due to swell-
ing when a damp spell of weather comes. We
screw our plates hard and fast to these wooden
backs and when said backs begin to swell, or
at least want to begin to swell, the extra load
is bound to come on the plate. If then the plate
has not been made strong enough to stand the
extra strain, sooner or later it is likely to give
way.
"Several years ago a certain firm sold a piano
to a customer of mine who also possessed a
cabinet organ tuned to the old concert pitch
One of the conditions of the sale was that the
firm was to tune that piano up to the old organ.
Well, they did so, and gave a ten-year guarantee
on the piano. After the first year 1 was given
charge of this piano and I never had the slightest
trouble in keeping it up to the organ as it did not
drop in pitch to any extent. Well, after I had
looked after that piano for seven years, one
damp August day the plate went with a bang.
The maker said that as the piano had stood up
for eight years all right, it must have been mal-
treated by the tuner. But when I explained to
the maker that he was using high pitch on this
particular piano while he usually tuned his other
pianos to international pitch, and that owing to
the extra strain imposed on the plate every sum-
mer by the expansion of the wooden back, the
plate finally had to give way, he understood.
And when I also explained why this particular
plate chose the month of August to let go in
preference to some other month, he made good.
Yet, if he had made the plate strong enough in
the beginning to resist all the strain put upon
it, he would have been money in.
"The second reason why plates should be
made much stronger than merely enough to
• stand high pitch is found in the ignorance of so
"many so-called tuners. When these fellows un-
dertake to raise pitch on a piano they impose
much more uneven strain on parts of a plate
than is necessary. This point is well illustrated
in a letter to a contemporary of yours by a gen-
tleman who says he is a tuner and that the idea
presented itself to him that when raising pitch
he could jerk up the piano. (I am inclined to
think the devil suggested the idea to him.) Any-
how, he goes on to tell that he jerked up a piano
in this way and that 'a gun went off' suddenly;
and lo the plate was broken. He repeated the
performance the same week with like results and
after breaking a second plate in this way (this
time in a good grade piano), he woke up, so
he said, to the fact that it was not the plate's, but
the tuner's fault.
.
"Now, an inexperienced tuner or novice has
no business to monkey with changing pitch on
pianos, as I have set forth in my book, 'How to
Change the Pitch of Pianos.' In fact, when I get
an order from a person who says nothing about
REPAIRS
himself being a tuner, I write first to make in-
quiry as to his capability, and if the answers
are not satisfactory, he gets his money, back, but
no lessons from me.
"When 1 have time some day I shall give you
my reasons for thinking the full iron frame is
the best. Permit me, however, to suggest that
it would be a great advance in piano making for
the makers to do away with the old wooden back
and use iron instead. In that case we should
not have the swollen wood pulling on the plates
in damp weather, as we find them doing now.
Respectfully, George L. Maitland, Philadelphia,
Pa, March 26, 1916."
more or less smooth results in a factory, one has
by no means learned the entire "art and mys-
tery" (as the old guilds of the Middle Ages used to
say) of piano tuning.
It is a fortunate thing for all of us that the
old high concert pitch is virtually obsolete every-
where except in such hands and orchestras as
have not yet adopted international pitch wind
instruments. Happily, the number of such or-
ganizations become smaller with each passing
year and we may now look confidently forward
to a time when they will have disappeared en-
tirely.
I for one am no lover of the massive iron
plate. It seems to me that no more emphatic
sign of unscientific groping is to be found than
in the provision of a plate far too massive, sim-
ply because the makers want to be "on the safe
side." When one feels compelled to do things
wrong because one wants to be safe, one simply
condemns oneself. For the man who knows the
science of piano making obviously must know
enough to calculate the strains that he proposes
to inflict upon his piano. If he cannot calculate
such strains or have them calculated for him.
then he does not understand the science of piano
making. In such a case he had better prepare
for all emergencies by making everything too
strong, which is, in effect, the method proposed
by Mr. Maitland. But what a commentary on
the industry! Why is it not just as easy to learn
the nature of the problem and so learn the exact
state of the means which are best adapted to
solve it? How much better to know what
strains are to be supported, what distribution of
weight of metal will best subserve the purpose
and what factor of safety should rightly be al-
lowed! All such knowledge would mean no
more than is taken as a matter of course in all
engineering work; while it would not only tend
to greater economy in design, but to much
greater efficiency and much better appearance.
Regarding iron instead of wooden back, Mr.
Maitland has much reason for what he says. T
do not know whether he has yet seen the new
construction Bauer piano, made by Julius Bauer
& Co., of Chicago, but if he has not, he may
anticipate the future sight of a practical and
highly efficient exemplification of his idea in
which great durability is wedded to improvement
in tonal capacity and color.
The various so-called "metal backs" which
have been produced in past years and which
It is a curious fact that in all my own career
I have never yet broken an iron plate, although
I have run across pianos with fractured plates
and have once or twice essayed, successfully,
repairs en them. Still, it is plain that careless
tuning methods may easily have the most dis-
astrous effects on plates, for the reason that un-
less the maker has produced an enormously mas-
sive construction, it is always possible to inflict
through careless work, sudden strains that will
he in the highest degree dangerous. In Mr.
Maitland's valuable book on pitch changing, he
sets forth a method highly plausible, which has
commended itself to him through many years
of practice. He avoids, to put the matter briefly,
undue straining of the weaker parts of the plate.
How he does this is better told in his own work.
In any case I could only half tell the story here
and should only do so imperfectly; and so mis-
lead well meaning experimenters. For in a
case like this, half the truth is worse than no
truth at all.
The rruth. of course, is that the inexperienced
tuner habitually rushes in where the skilled one
fears to tread. I can well remember one of my
first experiences on the outside after 1 had been
tuning long enough in a factory to believe that
1 knew all about the art. One always does be-
lieve this sort of thing when one is new to one's
work. The cheery young professional who grad-
uated the day before yesterday is almost as
much of a nuisance as the brilliant amateur who
has a "natural gift" for some branch of human
endeavor. In factories, of course, one does not
tune very old pianos, nor change pitch; at least
one does not have to do this once in the pro-
verbial blue moon. Certainly I knew nothing
about it. Anyhow, by some combination of ad-
dress and appearance, or perhaps because tuners
were scarce, I managed to find a job in a ware-
4- LESSONS
room, and the very first piano that I had to tune
outside turned out to be a fearfully ancient up-
right of some early commercial breed whose
For Good Tuners ONLY, who have trouble
name I have forgotten. The pitch was something
when raising pitch of pianos.
like a semitone below international, and, in my
Price $2. sent by mail. P. O. Money Order.
sweet innocence, knew no better than to begin
GEO. L. MAITLAND, 4806 Fairmont Ave., Philadelphia
dragging the strings up to my tuning fork, with-
out a thought of danger. It was not until I had FAUST SCHOOL OF TUNING
broken three or four that I began to realize
there was something yet to learn. I did not Piano, Player-Piano, Pipe and Reed Organ Tuning and Re-
break the plate. Why I did not break it I do not pairing, alto Regulating, Voicing, Varnishing and Polishing
This formerly was the tuning department of the New
know. I can only suppose that it was some wild England
Conservatory of Music, and Oliver C. Faust was
head
of the department for 20 years previous to its dis-
chance. Certainly, I can see now that I ought continuance.
Courses in mathematical piano scale construction and
to have broken it, and that the only reason 1
of same have been added.
can imagine for its having survived breakage drafting
Pupils have daily practise in Checkering & Sons' factory.
Year Book sent free upon request.
must have been to prevent my being eternally
disgraced at the very opening of what has 27-29 GAINSBOROUGH ST., BOSTON, MASS.
proved to be an interesting and adventurous
career. But at least I learned that because one
has acquired the art of tuning new pianos with
"HOW TO CHANGE PITCH OF PIANOS"
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339 S. WABASH AVE.
CHICAGO
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