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JULY IS,
THE MUSIC TRADE
1922
REVIEW
11
OurTECHNICAL DEPARTMENT
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM BRAID WHITE
MAKING PHYSICS PRACTICAL
Some Observations on a Question, With a Side
Light on a Scientific Piano Maker
"Dear Mr. White: I have been wonderfully
interested in your articles in The Review and
have received much valuable instruction from
them, but more than usually was attracted by
the article 'What Engineers Think: and Why,'
in the issue of July 1. I have been a piano
salesman for thirty years and the thought you
bring out strikes me most forcibly. I am there-
fore taking the liberty of asking your frank
and candid opinion as to the progress Mr.
Charles Mehlin has made by his research work
and by introducing in his pianos the scientific
features you suggest.
"I was listening some time ago to a conversa-
tion between a tuner of good repute and a pro-
fessor of physics, who wanted to know why piano
builders do not apply the rules of physics in the
making of pianos. The tuner said it was because
they were unable to apply them practically. Sin-
cerely yours, W. G. Fisher, Paducah, Ky."
On a Personal Question
Now, in answering this interesting question,
let me say in advance that I do so because it
opens up the field of discussion I have been
trying to open up among my readers. The
personal reference is of secondary importance,
as shall appear. Charles Mehlin is a scientific
piano maker. No greater tribute of praise can
be paid to him than to say of him, in these days,
that he is a scientific piano maker. He has
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devoted his life to discovering the application
to piano making of scientific principles, as these
have been developed by workers in acoustics.
He is a scientific piano maker and that is all
I need to say about him.
What the Tuner Meant
But Mr. Fisher raises a collateral point which
is even more important. He tells us of the tuner
who told a professor of physics that piano mak-
ers cannot make practical application of physical
laws in piano making. Now this statement is of
course not true, though doubtless its maker sup-
posed it to be quite true. It is not true because
no piano could possibly be made which did not in
some way, or to some degree, follow out the
principles of physics. Every musical instrument
is of course in the same case as far as this goes.
But our tuner naturally did not wish to be
taken strictly. He doubtless meant to say that,
in his opinion, piano makers are not able to
build pianos scientifically.
If he were questioned about the matter he
might perhaps still reply that his meaning was
not yet disclosed, but that he rather meant to
say that piano making could not be theoretically
correct according to any laws, since the task
of making a practical instrument must of neces-
sity preclude scientific accuracy. As a matter
of fact this opinion is generally held by men of
the craft throughout the country; nor, in face
of the appalling specimens of piano making with
which tuners have to deal daily, can one be sur-
prised at the pessimism disclosed. But this does
not prevent me from maintaining that the at-
titude is altogether incorrect, being founded en-
tirely upon what has hitherto been generally done,
and not at all upon what might, could and
should be done.
To the professor's question I should like to
suggest this answer: "Yes, piano makers can
build pianos according to scientific principles,
which is what you mean; but they decline to do
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so for a variety of reasons. The chief of these
resides in the unhappy fact that piano making
has ceased to be an art, generally speaking, and
has become a production process. Whether this
has or has not been to the general benefit, by
bringing pianos in large quantities at low prices
to the masses, is arguable; but that does not alter
the fact that pianos are customarily made to-
day without thought as to their perfectibility.
They are regarded as products salable 'as is,'
and so long as this conception of their place
in the world is allowed to dominate the world's
ideas, then, so long will pianos not be made ac-
cording to scientific methods."
Such an answer would be correct, although it
would not have gone into the reasons for the
change which has made the piano the mass-
product it is so generally to-day. These rea-
sons are by no means wholly economic, and rest
far more largely upon faulty merchandising meth-
ods; but there is no time or place here to argue
that side of the question. What I wish to point
out is that in fact the piano is to-day suffering
from an economic, a merchandising and a com-
mercial deterioration, which arises from the fact
that it is not keeping abreast with the times
and that it is not, in consequence, appealing to
the people as once it did. Now, it is also my
opinion that the piano can be rescued from this
position so soon as its improvement has been
seriously recognized by the industry as being
absolutely necessary.
When this recognition has been made we can
better attack the problem of answering the pro-
fessor's question, for we can tell him that piano
makers are going to apply scientific methods to
piano making.
What Is Scientific Method?
Now, the application of scientific method does
not in the least mean that piano making can be
(Continued on page 14)
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