Topic by Jake Johnson

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  • Jake Johnson
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Topic: Strings of varying thickness, lengthwise, to create stronger IH

From the VI Control site: Someone has created software code in Mathematica for, written a paper about, and strung a piano, using strings that have been, in sections, manually unwound, disturbing the normal partial ladder of each note. Not in just a chaotic way, but with the desire to create specific sounds, some of which are interesting. Note that there are 2 videos here. The second is the better one:

https://vi-control.net/community/thread...ano.68551/

Makes me wonder if, perhaps not long ago, there might have been more variation in the thickness of strings when they were hand-wound. Could some of the personality of old pianos arise from subtle, accidental thickness variations, less extreme than what these chaps are creating?

Here is the link to their site, where there are more sound examples, and the Mathematica "notebooks" for experimenting: http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/papers/hyperOctave.html

Of course, having strings with wide IH is nothing new. Calculating the wide IH by varying the string width seems to be the thing that may be of some interest for modelling sounds.

Last edited by Jake Johnson (28-01-2018 16:25)

Reply by _DJ_

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Re: Strings of varying thickness, lengthwise, to create stronger IH

Jake Johnson wrote:

Makes me wonder if, perhaps not long ago, there might have been more variation in the thickness of strings when they were hand-wound. Could some of the personality of old pianos arise from subtle, accidental thickness variations, less extreme than what these chaps are creating?

that's a fascinating observation, Jake!
in the case of really "old" pianos (ie what's genially referred to as "fortepianos" these days), while i'd be reasonably sure that it's a contributing factor (there is afterall what seems like a possible infinity of variables that play into an instrument's 'character'), it's probably not a prominent one as it's generally only a very few of the lowest base notes on "early" pianos that, if at all, would use wound strings (which are generally all, as well, straight-strung, until you start getting to late-ish 19th century instruments)—the rest are just high quality, unwound wire (i always liked Rose's for my instruments).  still, undoubtedly those sorts of subtle variations have a role to play...

cheers & thanks for the interesting links!

Last edited by _DJ_ (29-01-2018 10:10)
Matthieu 7:6

Reply by sandalholme

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Re: Strings of varying thickness, lengthwise, to create stronger IH

On a similar topic, the sound of my harpsichord changed when all the steel strings (apart from the bass (brass) strings) were replaced by hand drawn iron strings. Obviously the character changed, but I guess the variability of the hand drawn strings affected the harmonics in interesting ways. Too long ago for accurate memories of this.

Reply by Kramster1

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Re: Strings of varying thickness, lengthwise, to create stronger IH

Never thought about the strings like that... very interesting indeed.

Pianoteq 8, most pianos, Studiologic 73 Piano, Casio Px-560M, PX-S 3000, PX-S 1100, PX-S 7000, Mac i27 and MacBook Pro M3, SS Logic SSL 2

Reply by aandrmusic

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Re: Strings of varying thickness, lengthwise, to create stronger IH

I would like to get their code to play around with.
I haven't touched Mathematica in quite some time, I no longer have access to a licensed copy.
Stage one would be to translate/transliterate it to SAGE.

The starting values(assumptions) for the variables are of most interest and (for me) difficult to obtain.

Reply by aandrmusic

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Re: Strings of varying thickness, lengthwise, to create stronger IH

Jake Johnson wrote:

From the VI Control site: Someone has created software code in Mathematica for, written a paper about, and strung a piano, using strings that have been, in sections, manually unwound, disturbing the normal partial ladder of each note. Not in just a chaotic way, but with the desire to create specific sounds, some of which are interesting. Note that there are 2 videos here. The second is the better one:

https://vi-control.net/community/thread...ano.68551/

Makes me wonder if, perhaps not long ago, there might have been more variation in the thickness of strings when they were hand-wound. Could some of the personality of old pianos arise from subtle, accidental thickness variations, less extreme than what these chaps are creating?

Here is the link to their site, where there are more sound examples, and the Mathematica "notebooks" for experimenting: http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/papers/hyperOctave.html

Of course, having strings with wide IH is nothing new. Calculating the wide IH by varying the string width seems to be the thing that may be of some interest for modelling sounds.

One would have to believe that modern string winding machinery is more consistent than hand winding was.
I agree that it COULD be, but it is quite possible that cost goals cause consistency ("quality") that is little/no better than acceptable and that the standard for "acceptable" is inherited.

I suspect that there is FAR more effect from variability in the wood than in the strings and modern wooden pianos are still subject to that.
What we HEAR of a piano is a vibrating board that has been excited by vibrating strings and that board is a filter.