Scan 67
Musical Courier 1892-12-21: Vol 25 Iss 668, 1892
30 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 60. See the scan on archive.org.
1purity of a pianist's tone depend very much upon the rapidity with which the finger attacks the key. To transfer this velocity to the stroke of the hammer without obliging a dogged pressure on the key, is the sine qua non of a perfect action; and this problem has been in the hands of piano makers from the very beginning. But there are other complications. A thick string requires a heavy hammer and a strong blow. Makers have usually taken their choice between thin strings, small hammers, and light actions and heavy strings and clumsy actions. The question also comes up in violin making. A violin with a light elastic tone that speaks quickly, requires little expenditure of strength in bowing, but it lacks nobility; whereas a violin with a robust and powerful tone demands a corresponding expenditure of muscular power.
3It was the salvation of the Steinway piano that its makers sought tone before everything else. This being obtained, after unremitting experiment they perfected an action which satisfied all the desirable conditions both of tone and of touch.
5The total weight, friction and inertia of the action is overcome by the key lever, by the weight of certain leads imbedded in one of the arms of the key lever and by upbearing springs.
7The relative length of the arms of the levers; the relative positions of their fulcra; the evenness of the key bed; the thickness and quality of the felt under the key; the strength of the springs in the action; the weight, size, shape and materials of the various parts of the action; the angles of lift and stroke, offer nice problems in mechanics; so, too, the precise points at which the various checks come into play, and the manufacture of the checks themselves.
9A perfect action transfers the blow of the finger to the hammer without loss of power or of velocity. Its touch should be delicate, yet elastic; regulated, as Theodore Steinway believed, so exactly that the key answers to the pressure of the finger down to the very bottom, allowing for effect of dampness and no more. If the finger overcomes the resistance of the key in its descent too easily the resources of the pianist in variety of touch are greatly diminished, and legato playing always suffers, and with it nobility of style. It is here that those pianos which have a light touch as their chief feature seem to me to fail. Lace work flourishes, but nobility and passion fade for lack of elasticity. The greater depth of touch prevalent among American pianos favors nobility of style, but not execution.
11Although a large majority of builders buy their actions ready made, to save expense, the great houses make their own. Each possesses its own special features, usually the product of the experience of generations. This simple little contrivance—a pair of levers with an escapement—embodies in its present perfection the world's toil for 200 years. This is no mere wooden thing. It means the yearning and striving which are the moving springs of human life—the lifting powers of civilization. The unspeakable awe and wishfulness which come from consciousness of our inner and, as we think, immortal life have brought it to pass.
13"Man would not be the finest creature on the earth if he were not too fine for the earth," said Goethe. The first step in civilization is a divine discontent with mere living—mere animal enjoyment of the fruits of the earth—the instant voice whereof is music. This discontent with material life—the sense of our divine birthright that language cannot articulate—has set civilization the problem: "Contrive for me a mechanism by which I can first translate, then idealize into music every feeling of humanity. God has given each man one voice. Make, O Civilization, each of my 10 fingers into a voice. What the Almighty has done in the delicate muscles and levers of my arm, do thou duplicate behind the keys in springs and levers."
15Such is the action, its history recorded in patents stretching back through centuries and covering again and again every curve, every angle, every grain of weight, every millimetre of length and breadth, taking up the lifetime of generations of men who could not understand each other's speech, but whose thought met in something higher than speech. Future races will scrutinize its adjustment, so delicate that its manufacture has long passed out of mechanics to art, and read therein the witness of our higher nature, which has pressed forward this passionate labor of invention to give you and me new power to express how we feel and thereby to set a new sign of immortal life before us.
17In the hour when I saw this, the walls of the factory wherein I stood stretched upward to the grandeur of God's temple; and the wrinkled face of the workman beside me, his eyes resting lovingly and proudly on the beauties of the action before us, became glorified in a priesthood whose majesty he knew not. It is the wonder and pathos of life that they who serve its deepest mysteries—yes, even the holy of holies—have no significant initiation, no outward badge. Their badge is but toil's superscription in the lines of face and form; their initiation but the long discipline of faithful labor. Theirs is but a matter of regulating a few springs and levers, but the levers are among those which lift humanity.
19THE SOUNDBOARD.
21I place before you this glass plate, supported, as you see, upon a standard. Chladni laid the foundations of acoustics when watching the motion of sand strewn on such a plate as this. I draw my bow across its edge and produce an audible tone; the sand arranges itself on the surface of the plate in geometrical figures, and you guess at once that the heaps you see forming gather upon the quiet portions of the board—that is, upon nodes—and that the vacant spaces discover vibrating segments, from which the sand has been tossed away. Such a plate, subject, according to its points of support and attack, to changeable nodes, representing different partial tones, is the soundboard of a piano. I strike this tuning fork; you do not hear it. But now, when I bring its stem in contact with the wooden table, it is clearly audible. The table is a soundboard—that is, a surface capable of reinforcing the vibrations of a sounding body. It is also capable of sustaining its own independent system of vibrations,
23The soundboard of a piano consists of three parts: the board itself, its ribs and its bridge. The bridge supports the strings. When a string is in place upon a piano it is attached at one end by its wrest pins to the wrest plank, at the other by its hitch pins to the string block. The pull of the strings is counteracted by the tension bars of the metal frame. These bars run above the strings from hitch pin plate to wrest plank, and hold the two apart. On the soundboard, near the back, before the hitch pins, stands the bridge; in front of the wrest pins a flange of the wrest plank plate projects under the string and practically forms a second bridge. A series of pins on the upper side of the soundboard bridge hold the strings in place. It is the office of the bridge to transmit the vibrations of the strings to the soundboard. Its curve defines the vibrating length of the strings, and its height determines the amount of downward pressure which they exert upon the soundboard.
25The bridge of the piano that we are studying is made of alternate veneers of hard and soft wood, because such veneers are better conductors of sound waves than solid blocks of wood. Theodore Steinway found that the vibrations of the strings run from one end of such a bridge to the other, and set in vibration all the fibres of the soundboard beneath. This composite bridge, like the iron frame and wooden bracing of which I shall presently speak, was perfected only a few years before the death of its inventor. The three represent the incessant study of his life. Sound is propagated through different kinds of wood, and in different directions through the same block of wood, with widely differing velocities. It was in scientific investigation of such phenomena, and in practical application of the laws thereby discovered, that the genius of this great artist found its congenial employment. Solid maple or beech bridges, however, are still in common use among the majority of makers. Since the fan scale made its appearance the bridge has been brought as much as possible into the centre of the soundboard. It should be as nearly parallel as possible with the fibres of the board.
27The pressure of the strings on the soundboard must be met by support from beneath. This is usually attempted by the use of ribs, but their application varies in theory and practice. Too many ribs stiffen the board and stop its vibrations; too few allow it to play up and down, and thus refuse the vibrations of the strings. If the pressure of the strings is not counteracted the soundboard sags; then the strings lie loose on the bridge and do not communicate their vibrations to it, whereupon the tone becomes weak and thin, like the tinkle of a music box. During the last century every imaginable plan has been tried to sustain the soundboard without spoiling its tone. Nothing better than good ribbing has been devised. Every piano maker has his own experience and secrets concerning the shape, bracing, thickness and attachment of this exquisitely sensitive part of the piano. Its treatment largely marks the school of building to which the maker adheres.
29Blüthner holds that the tone is not affected by the direction which the annual rings of the wood hold toward the strings; but the rings must form straight lines. Fine grained wood, according to him, is better for the treble side; coarser for the bass; the space between to be built up gradually, so that unlike pieces do not come together. During the last century the thickness of the soundboard has increased with the size of the piano—the treble perhaps a little thinner than the bass, custom diverging. Blüthner proposes making each soundboard out of the wood of a single tree. Conifers are supposed to satisfy acoustic requirements best. Pine, larch, cedar and mahogany have been tried, with corresponding modifications of tone, but spruce is the usual choice. Distinction is made as to place of growth. Spruce from cool, stony uplands is of finer grain than that from warm bottom lands; boards from the north side of a tree than those from its south side. This difference between the two sides of the same tree appears to have impressed makers of other musical instruments, for Duborg mentions south side wood as better for violins. But the vast manufactories of to-day forbid such primitive practices. After the sap begins to run, the wood is unfit to
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