source file: m1399.txt
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 06:17:46 EDT

Subject: RE: Difficulties in Piano Construction

From: Ascend11 <Ascend11@aol.com>

Jesse Gay wrote: "...constructing a JI piano creates some serious 'mechanical'
difficulties..."

	A couple of thoughts: "mechanical" may have been used here in the sense that
trying to get players to accept a piano with (many) more than the usual twelve
keys per octave as would be required for JI was a "mechanical" problem - or
squeezing many more than twelve keys per octave onto a piano in a way
acceptable to performers was an insurmountable "mechanical" problem for the
piano manufacturers.

	Also, my piano tuner was unwilling to shift the pitches of some sets of keys
on my rented piano by 40 cents (which I wanted him to do so as to put it into
a limited JI tuning) because he feared that a shift that big might have a
permanent adverse effect on the strings (hurt their tone quality or else cause
them to become unstable and not able to hold their pitches, etc.).  Twenty
cents or so was about as far as he was willing to move their pitches.  To
build a piano which could withstand frequent large shifts in the pitches of
some notes might present unusual technical difficulties.

	This brings me to the following question which a piano tuner on this list
might be able to shed light on: Is it always risky to a piano to occasionally
move all the Abs by 40 cents or all the Ebs by 40 cents so as to move the wolf
in mean tone around?

	Good luck.

Dave Hill   La Mesa, CA