source file: m1401.txt Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 09:25:32 EDT Subject: RE: Difficulties in Piano Construction From: A440A > Gary wrote, > > If I remember correctly, [Ivor] said that it would tend to go out of tune more quickly in anything other than equal-temperament. Oddly enough, I have found that ET is the most perishable tuning on a piano, and I don't know why. Perhaps it is that ET is already so "out of tune" that changes are quite evident, whereas on a well temperament, all the keys are different anyway,so the change in tuning is only a change in degree. On equal temperament, a shift in the tuning destroys the only unique thing that ET has. Perception aside, well temperaments and meantone tunings on modern pianos are more stable than ET, after the initial string alterations are relaxed. > "Physically, . . . the inharmonicity of single piano strings . . . > becomes decreased as the pitch is raised. ([This] is implied in fact by > the formula of inharmonicity by Fletcher.)" Yes, I have read Fletcher, but it doesn't explain why the inharmonicity of a piano wire measures higher as the tension is increased. Perhaps there is a point of reversal, inre tension/inharmonicity. Regards, Ed Foote Precision Piano Works Nashville, Tn