source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 12:50:22 -0800 Subject: RE: integral overtones From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> > The stiffness of real wires clamped to a support at their ends makes > them effectively shorter for higher vibrational modes. This is > responsible for piano anharmonicity since the higher partials are sharp > compared with true harmonics of the fundamental. ... The anharmonicity > is less for long thin wires than it is for > short thick wires, hence the harpsichord is less anharmonic than the > piano. That is absolutely true, and is indeed a very important characteristic of the piano timbre. That also probably helps to explain why a properly-tuned piano tends to have slightly stretched octaves in the upper range. And to that I'll add that it's not only less, but vastly less for the harpsichord, and also for virtually every other stringed instrument as well. The fact that the highest strings have vibrational characteristics that begin to depart from string acoustics toward those of metal bars, is pretty much unique to the piano. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 21:48 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA01228; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 21:51:09 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA01226 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id MAA15018; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 12:51:07 -0800 Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 12:51:07 -0800 Message-Id: <199701041547_MC1-E36-A05@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu