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JAP S` See also:discovery that has since been introduced as novel. His See also:instrument (fig. 28) is in a See also:complete See also:iron See also:frame, See also:independent of the See also:case; and in this frame, strengthened by a See also:system of iron resistance rods combined with an iron upper See also:bridge, his See also:sound-See also:board is entirely suspended. An apparatus for tuning by See also:mechanical screws regulates the tension of the strings, which are of equal length throughout. The See also:action, in See also:metal supports, anticipates Wornum's in the checking, and still later ideas in a contrivance for repetition. This remarkable bundle of inventions was brought to See also:London and exhibited by See also:Hawkins himself; !L. IIIIIffll 11 .11NI IYWWYIIIIIillliStMIllWIVIIIIl@See also:lll llNltlS IBllilIIttl I _4sinliiilill a lillll~4ui hiedIL., 'miiuu ii i'iuui,uwiumunn if. but the instrument being poor in the See also:tone failed to bring him pecuniary See also:reward or the See also:credit he deserved. See also:Southwell appears to have been one of the first to profit by Hawkins's ideas by bringing out the high See also:cabinet See also:pianoforte, with hinged sticker action, in 1807. All that he could, however, patent in it was the See also:simple damper action, turning on a See also:pivot to relieve the dampers from the strings, which is still frequently used with such actions. The next steps for producing the See also:lower or cottage upright piano were taken by See also:Robert Wornum, who in 1811 produced a diagonally, and in 1813 a vertically, strung one. Wornum's perfected See also:crank action (fig. 29) was not complete until 1826, when it was patented for a cabinet piano; but it was not really introduced until three years later, when Wornum applied it to his little " See also:piccolo." The principle of this centred See also:lever check action was introduced into See also:Paris by Pleyel1 and Pape, and thence into See also:Germany and See also:America.
It was not, however, from Hawkins's invention that iron became introduced as essential to See also:Allen the structure of a pianoforte. This
was due to See also: At once a See also:great advance was made in the possibility of using heavier strings than could be stretched before, without danger to the durability of the case and frame. The next step was in 1821, to a fixed iron See also:string-See also:plate, the invention of one of Broad-wood's workmen, See also:Samuel
Herve, which was in the first instance applied to one of the square pianos of that firm. The great See also:advantage in the fixed plate was a more even solid counterpoise to the See also:drawing or tension of the strings and the abolition of their undue length
1 See also:Pleyel exhibited a small upright piano in Paris in 1827. See also:Pierre See also:Erard did not turn his See also:attention to upright pianos until 1831.behind the bridge, a reduction which See also:Isaac Carter2 had tried some years before, but unsuccessfully, to accomplish with a plate of wood. So generally was attention now given to improved methods of resistance that it has not been found possible to determine who first practically introduced those long iron or steel resistance bars which are so See also:familiar a feature in See also:modern See also:grand pianos. They were experimented on as substitutes for the wooden bracing by See also:Joseph See also: The resistance bars were increased to five, six, seven, eight and, as we have seen, even nine, according to the ideas of the different See also:English and See also:French makers who used them in their pursuit of stability.
The next important addition to the grand piano in See also:order of time was the See also:harmonic bar of Pierre Erard, introduced in 1838. This was a See also:gun-metal bar of alternate pressing and drawing See also:power by means of screws which were tapped into the wrest-plank immediately above
the treble See also:bearings, making that part of the instrument nearly immovable; this favoured the See also:production of higher harmonics to the treble notes, recognized in what we commonly See also:call " See also:ring." A similar bar, subsequently extended by Broadwood across the entire wrest-plank, was to prevent any tendency in the wrest-plank to rise, from the combined upward drawing of the strings. A method of fastening the strings on the string-plate depending upon See also:friction, and thus dispensing with
eyes," was a contribution of the Collards, who had retained James See also: After the Great See also:Exhibition of 1851 he employed an ordinary straight bar in the middle of his See also:concert grand scale, his smaller grands having frequently two such as well as the long bass bar. After 1862 he covered his wrest-plank with a thick plate of iron into which the tuning pins See also:screw as well as into the wood beneath, thus avoiding the crushing of the wood by the See also:constant pressure of the See also:pin across the pull of the string, an ultimate source of danger to durability. The introduction of iron into pianoforte structure was differently and independently effected in America, the fundamental idea there being to use a single casting for the metal plate and bars, instead of See also:forging or casting them in See also:separate pieces. Alphaeus Babcock was the See also:pioneer to this See also:kind of metal construction. He also was bitten with the compensation notion, and had See also:cast an iron ring for a square piano in 1825, which, although not a success, gave the See also:clue to a single casting resistance framing, successfully accomplished by See also:Conrad See also:Meyer, in See also:Philadelphia, in 1833, in a square piano which still exists, and was shown in the Paris Exhibition of 1878. Meyer's idea was improved upon by See also:Jonas Chickering (1797–1853) of See also:Boston, who applied it to the grand piano as well as to the square, and brought the principle up to a high degree of perfection —establishing by it the independent construction of the See also:American pianoforte. We have now to do with over- or cross-stringing, by which the bass See also:division of the strings is made to cross Over- stringing, over the tenor part of the scale in a single, See also:double or treble disposition at diverging angles— the See also:object being in the first instance to get longer bass strings than are attainable in a parallel scale, and in the next to open out the scale and extend the See also:area of bridge pressure on the sound-board. In the 18th See also:century clavichords were sometimes overstrung in the lowest See also:octave to get a clearer tone in that very indistinct part of the instrument (strings tuned an octave higher being employed). The first See also:suggestion for the overstringing in the piano was made by the celebrated See also:flute-player and inventor See also:Theobald See also:Boehm, who carried it beyond theory in London, in 1831, by employing a small firm located in Cheapside, Gerock & See also:Wolf, to make some overstrung pianos for him. Boehm expected to gain in tone; Pape, an ingenious mechanician in Paris, tried a like experiment to gain See also:economy in dimensions, his notion being to See also:supply the best piano possible with the least outlay of means. Tomkinson in London continued Pape's See also:model, but neither Boehm's nor Pape's took permanent See also:root. The Great Exhibition of 1851 contained a grand piano, made by Lichtenthal of St See also:Petersburg, overstrung in order to gain symmetry by two See also:angle sides to the case. It was regarded as a curiosity only. Later, in 1855, Henry Engelhard Steinway (originally Steinweg; Steinway. 1797–1871), who had emigrated from See also:Brunswick to New See also:York in 1849, and had established the firm of Steinway & Sons in 1853 in that See also:city, effected the combination of an overstrung scale with the American iron frame, which exhibited in grand and square See also:instruments shown in London in the See also:International Exhibition of 1862, excited the attention of See also:European pianoforte makers, leading ultimately to important results. The Chickering firm claim to have anticipated the Steinways in this invention. They assert that Jonas Chickering had begun a square piano on this combined system in 1853, but, he died before it was completed, and it was brought out later. It is often difficult to adjudicate upon the claims of inventors, so rarely is an invention the product of one man's mind alone. However, the principle was taken up and generally adopted in America and Germany, and found followers elsewhere, not only in grand but in upright pianos, to the manufacture of which it gave, and particularly in Germany, a powerful impetus. ^ See also:ram! !lllliilllU!!!illl=~jii!IIIIIIi!!I iIG+1!!!!!!~! 101 ""°""""""" See also:loom. s/' 1111 Since 1885 the American system of a metal plate in one casting, and cross- or over-stringing by which the spun bass strings cross the longer steel diagonally, has become general See also:Recent in See also:Europe with the exception of France, where structural musical See also:taste has remained constant to the older changes. wooden structure and parallel stringing throughout. The greater tenacity of the modern cast-steel wire favours a very much higher tension, and consequent easier production of the higher partials of the notes, permitting a sostenuto unknown to Beethoven, See also:Schumann or Chopin. While in 1862 the' highest tension of a concert grand piano worked out at sixteen tons, since 1885 See also:thirty tons has been recorded. Generally speaking, the rise in tension may be expressed musically by the See also:interval of a See also:minor third, to the great advantage of the See also:standing in tune. First shown by Henry Steinway in the London Exhibition of 1862, this altered construction attracted extraordinary attention at Paris in 1867, and determined the See also:German direction of manufacture and a few years later the English. What is now particularly noticeable wherever pianos are made is the higher See also:average of excellence attained in making, as well as in piano-playing. Naturally the See also:artistic quality, the See also:personal See also:note, characterizes all first-class instruments, and permits that See also:liberty of choice which appertains to a true conception of See also:art.
Much attention has been given of See also:late years to the See also:touch of pianos, to make it less tiring for the modern performer, especially since, in 1885–1886, Anton See also:Rubinstein went through the herculean feat of seven consecutive See also:historical recitals, repeated in the See also:capital cities and See also:principal musical centres of Europe. For even this stupendous player a See also:light touch was indispensable. In
the competition for power piano makers had been gradually increasing the weight of touch to be overcome by the See also:finger, until, to obtain the faintest pianissimo from middle C, at the front edge of the See also: In balancing the keys, See also:allowance has to be made for the shorter leverage of the See also:black keys. When the player touches the keys farther back the leverage is proportionately shortened and the weight increased, and there is also an ascehding scale in the weight of the player's See also:blow or pressure from pianissimo to fortissimo. The sum of the aggregate force expended by a pianist in a See also:recital of an See also:hour and a half's duration, if calculated, would be astonishing.
The most important structural See also:change in pianos in recent years has been the rejection of support given by metal bars or struts between the metal plate to which the strings are hitched and the wrest-plank wherein the tuning-pins are inserted. These bars formed part of William Allen's invention, brought forward by Stodart in 1820, and were first employed for rigidity in See also:place of compensation by the Paris Erards two years later, Broadwood in London introducing about that time the fixed metal plate. The patent No. 1231, for the barless or open-scale piano, taken out in London in 1888 by H. J. Tschudi Broadwood, is remarkable for simplification of design as well as other qualities. Ten years elapsed after the taking out of the patent before the first oarless grand was heard in public (January 1898 at St James's See also: The tone of the barless grand is of singular beauty and sonority and is even throughout the See also:compass. The problem of resonance—with stringed See also:keyboard instruments, the reinforcement or amplification of sound—has, from the days of the See also:lute- and See also:spinet-makers, been empirical. With lute, See also:guitar, and See also:viol or See also:violin i crea,,e of the sound-See also:box comes in, combining in the instrument Resenence. the distinct properties of string and enclosed See also:air or See also:wind. With the spinet, See also:harpsichord and piano we have to do chiefly with the plate of elastic wood, to amplify the initial sound of the strings; and the old See also:plan of a thin plate of spruce, put in slightly See also:convex and with an under-barring of wood for tension, has absorbed the attention of piano-makers. The violin belly, with its bass bar and sound See also:post, has relation to it; but the recent invention of the Stroh violin has shown that the initial string vibrations may be passed through a bridge, be concentrated, and adequately transferred to an See also:aluminium disk not much larger than half a See also:crown. The piano, with its numerous strings, cannot be so reduced, but the reinforcement problem is open to another See also:solution, tentative it is true, but a possible See also:rival. The " Gladiator " soundboard is the invention of See also:Albert Schulz, late director of the piano manufactory of Ritmuller and Sohne of See also:Gottingen. Dr See also:Moser's name has been associated with the inventor's in the English patent. In the " Gladiator " two slabs of wood, with See also:grain of opposed direction to give the necessary tension, are glued together, and the whole system of belly bars is done away with. There is a thinning round the edge, to facilitate promptness of speech. As we are still feeling our way towards an accurate and comprehensive statement of resonance, this invention is one claiming scientific See also:interest, as well as being of possible practical importance. To return to the touch. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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