October 1

Ingenious Piano Design from the Last Century

Here is a turn of the last century, Ivers and Pond from Boston.

First, notice the agraffes on every string. They don’t provide the termination point; there is still a V-bar, but they keep the strings spaced evenly.

Notice also the detail that went into the scaling in the treble. The non-speaking length changes every six notes which corresponds to nine strings of the same thickness in each section. The point here was to try and make the inharmonicity effect more even as we go through the treble.

And finally, they are Aliquot Bars in the treble which provide a kind of duplex scale, the point of which was to improve the tone of the treble.

This piano, even with its worn hammers, has some of the nicest tone I’ve ever heard of in an old upright.

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