Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
30
The Music Trade Review
MAY 21, 1927
The Technical and Supply Department (Continued from page 29)
many piano makers will say that the sound
board is all the piano, speaking tonally, and
that if the board be well and truly made the
scientific accuracy of the scale does not matter.
The argument seems to run somewhat as fol-
lows : Pianos are known, of which the tone
is beautiful, but of which the scale design is
old-fashioned, in the sense at least that it has
never been changed to any important extent
for many years. These pianos are known to
be made in factories where an immense amount
of attention has always been given to bellying
methods, of which the virtue is attested by the
innumerable and futile imitations of them which
have been attempted by others. Ergo, the
sound board work is the only, or at least bj
far the more important, element in the produc
tion of beautiful tone.
The reason is plausible but fallacious, for
it begs the question at issue. The answer to
the fallacy is to be found simply in producing
a scientifically correct scale for a piano which
has always been noted for its beautiful bellying
work. The combination, as is known, is simply
invincible.
The sound board, in fact, is a musical instru-
ment, in the sense that it responds to the
impression of musical vibratory motions upon
it. But just as a Stradivarius violin in the
hands of a child produces sounds very different
from the tones evoked by a Kreisler, so also
a fine piece of sound board work can by no
means be expected to give forth the possibilities
it includes within itself unless the string plan
above it is scientifically worked out. For the
sound board can only work upon the tonal
material which it receives. If this tonal raw
material—which is another name for the
scheme of string lengths, loadings, striking
points and so on, known as the scale—be con-
ceived in view of some understood and foreseen
tonal ideal, then it is certain that a sound board
*can be designed and built which shall make the
most of that ideal; or again, it may be said
that the finest sort of painstaking and experi-
ence founded sound board work can only find
itself escaping a certain amount of futility if
and when it has been worked out as the ex-
pression-means of a scientific scale. And there,
I think, is the whole secret and the answer
to the whole question.
Interaction of Elements
The production of tone, in fact, is not the
work of any element in a musical instrument
so complicated and highly organized as is the
pianoforte. It is the resultant of a large num-
ber of interacting forces, which are originated
from one point or from a group of points, and
which require for their adequate expression the
complete and what may be called "harmonious"
interaction of all the affected elements. Scale,
sound board, hammers, action, all alike are in-
dispensable, all alike are interdependent. Rut
there must be a place of origination. That
place is found among the strings; or rather
we should say that those places are there
found, for it is seldom that we can refer the
origin of any tonal excitation to one single
focus of excitement. The strings are the
originators, the sound board is the amplifier
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and the modifier. Nothing can be done by the
sound board save as the strings first convey
to it a message. The nature of that message
may be thus or so; but the sound board has
the power only, as it were, of editing and
amending it. The sound board cannot funda-
mentally alter its meaning. It cannot, to carry
on the analogy, insert a "not" in an affirmative
statement. It can edit, but it cannot contra-
dict.
tions are now being freely discussed in fac-
tories and among rival factory technicians
constitutes one of the happiest manifestations
of a welcome and auspicious change of mind
for the better.
Correspondence
is solicited and should be addressed to William
Braid White, 5149 Agatite avenue, Chicago.
To Sum Up
So that, if all this has any significance at
all, its meaning must be found in the under-
standing that the elements of pianoforte design
and construction cannot be isolated the one
from the other. It is simply ridiculous and
utterly futile to pursue the will-o-the-wisp of
single-minded devotion to one element. To
design a good scale and neglect the delicate
task of adjusting to that scale a correct sound
board, correctly placed and constructed ham-
mers and a correctly adjusted action, is to
achieve at best a stalemate. To concentrate
on beautiful sound board work and to attempt
to find the tonal solution therein, to the neglect
of scientific work on string lengths, loadings,
physical properties of wire, striking distances
and hammer construction, is to spend one's
lime forever battling against windmills, forever
chasing an ignis fatuus, forever glimpsing the
errant and the perpetually elusive spirit of the
beautiful. That tricksy sprite can only be run
to earth by those who know how to combine
their forces.
Our question then is answered in neutral
language. It is impossible to separate sound
board from strings, and although a bad sound
board with a scentinc scale will never produce
good tone, a good sound board with a bad
scale will never achieve what otherwise would
be well within its reach.
The new spirit which is beginning to animate
(happily) the world of pianoforte manufactur-
ing is certain to bring to the front man\ other
questions like this; and the fact that such ques-
Wider Research Needed
in Properties of Wood
Forest Products Laboratories Lists Thirty
Separate Properties of Product That Require
Investigation
MADISON, WIS., May 16.—The Forest Products
Laboratory has listed thirty separate and dis-
tinct properties of wood as needing study.
According to investigations of the Laboratory's
experts each of the principal commercial species
of wood has in some degree all of the thirty
properties listed. Some of these properties
have already been studied, while others so far
have had but little if any attention. Among
the properties upon which considerable in-
formation and data have already been gathered
are listed the following:
"Weight, strength in bending and compres-
sion, hardness, toughness, shock-resisting abil-
ity, stiffness, resistance to splitting, tendency to
develop defects in drying, susceptibility to
standard preservative treatment, gluing charac-
teristics."
This includes ten, or just a third of the thirty
properties listed. On some of the others a little
information has been- gathered, but on the rest
practically nothing. The other properties listed
are as follows:
"Resistance to abrasion, nail and screw-hold-
ing power, workability under machine and hand
(Continued on page 31)
Tuners Carrying Case
LIGHT—COMPACT—SERVICEABLE
Weighs Only 6 Pounds
Outside measurements 15J4 inches long, 7
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No. 150—Covered with seal grain imitation
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No. 200—Covered with genuine black cow-
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When closed the aluminum
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137/g" x 6" x 4". The two left hand
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and the two right hand trays W/%"
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,. , , it .
Hammacher, Schlemmer & Co.
Piano and Player Hardware, Felts and Tools
New York Since 1848
4th Ave. at 13th St.