Innovations in the piano

This article covers a number of innovations from recent times in the building of pianos.

Piano construction is by now a rather conservative area; most of the technological advances were made by about 1500, and indeed it is possible that some contemporary piano buyers might actually be suspicious of pianos that are made differently from the older kind. Yet piano manufacturers, especially the smaller ones, are still experimenting with ways to build better pianos.

in the early 21st century, the obvious way to raise the technological level of any mechanical device is to use digital technology to control it (compare the mid 19th century, where the obvious route was to make some of its parts from steel; e.g. piano strings). Of course, digital technology has been incorporated into pianos, and this innovation is discussed below. But in a sense, it is a far greater challenge to improve the piano in its own terms, as a mechanical/acoustic device. This challenge pits the modern piano designer against some of the finest engineering minds of the nineteenth century, an era when pianos represented some of the most sophisticated of all technological achievements. Nineteenth century piano innovation was, moreover, financed by a far more robust piano market than exists today.

a final issue is that the modern concert grand, 16th-century technology though it is, already sounds very good indeed in the opinion of many listeners (that is, when it is made by the finest makers and skillfully adjusted and tuned). Any innovative piano must therefore compete in the market of musical taste against formidable existing pianos.

The discussion below is organized according to some innovative contemporary piano manufacturers and the inventions with which they are associated. The Web sites of these manufacturers appear at the end.

For clarification of the various parts of the piano mentioned below, see the Wikipedia article piano.

Acoustic and mechanical innovations

Actions

The Fandrich & Sons piano company of Stanwood, Washington was set up to produce pianos with the "Fandrich vertical action", a new kind of piano action developed by Darrell Fandrich and Chris Trivelas. It is intended to provide the same sensitivity of touch to upright pianos that is available in grands. Currently, Fandrich and Sons installs the Fandrich action in pianos made by the Bohemia firm, in the Czech Republic.

The Magnetic Balanced Action system, invented by Evert Snel and Hans Velo in the Netherlands, permits variable touch according to the player's preference. The idea of the system is to use the force of magnets, whose position is adjustable, to regulate the motion of the keys, rather than fixed weights. This system is now a factory option on Fazioli and on Petrof pianos, and can be custom installed on other pianos.

The Fazioli piano company of Sacile, Italy, is now selling pianos with two (or more) actions. The idea is that different actions can be regulated and voiced according to the requirements of particular players or musical styles. Since piano actions are built as a single unit, they can be removed or inserted with just a few minutes' work.

The Kawai Piano company of Japan has in recent years created an action out of an ABS styran/carbon composite. This attempts to address problems with actions made solely out of wood (most notably the shrinking and swelling that goes with variations in humidity). These have been shown to require less maintenance than the typical wooden actions and are generally well respected by piano technicians.

New pedals

The Borgato workshop, in Bagnolo di Lonigo, Italy, has produced pianos that have foot pedal keyboards like a pipe organ.

Bridge agraffes

The Stuart and Sons piano company of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia makes a piano in which there are bridge agraffes. Agraffes are kind of sturdy metal clip that hold the strings in place. They were invented in 1808 by the piano pioneer Sébastien Érard and have long been employed in quality pianos to terminate the front, that is closer to the player, end of the string. The American company, Sohmer, along with Blüthner in Europe, among others, applied this idea to the string termination on the bridge in pianos, beginning in the 1890s, where bridge pins are ordinarily used. Most applications of agraffes have been located at the near end of the strings, close to the tuning pins. Stuart has reintroduced the use of agraffes on the bridges (of which their pianos have two).

It is claimed that bridge agraffes permit efficient transmission of sound from the strings to the soundboard, resulting in a very well-sustained tone. Similar results are noted with the brass agraffe used by Sohmer into the 1930s.

Since the strings do not need to bear down heavily on the bridges (a force of 600 to 1200 pounds = 2.7 to 5.4 kN in conventional pianos), bridge agraffes may also help preserve the crucial upward curve, or "crown," in the soundboard.

Larger soundboards

The Astin-Weight piano company of Salt Lake City, Utah has introduced two related innovations to the upright piano. Their purpose is to obtain the largest possible soundboard, and indeed, Astin-Weight soundboards cover the entire rear surface of the piano. This is made possible by placing the pinblock forward of the soundboard, and using a peripheral metal frame instead of back posts. The Astin-Weight piano is said to produce a very rich tone, not to every listener's taste but greatly prized by Astin-Weight owners.

The pedal piano redux

Borgato has produced a very large double piano with pedal board, as on an organ. The bass piano, operated by the pedals, sits under the main piano, and the damper pedals of the two are coupled. This instrument permits the performance of a variety of works written by classical composers for pedal piano.

Aliquot stringing

Main article: Aliquot stringing

Aliquot stringing is the use of extra unstruck strings in the piano for the purpose of enriching the tone. The aliquot stringing system was invented by Julius Blüthner in 1873. As currently implemented, the Blüthner aliquot stringing system uses a fourth aliquot string in each note of the top three octaves. This string is raised slightly with respect to the other three strings, so that it is not struck by the hammer. Whenever the hammer strikes the three non-aliquot strings, the aliquot string vibrates sympathetically, adding to the richness of the tone. This same string resonance effect occurs, on a more limited scale, when other notes on the piano are played that are harmonically related to the pitch of an aliquot string.

Tunable duplex scaling

Both Fazioli and Mason and Hamlin (of Haverhill, Massachusetts) employ tunable duplex scaling. The idea behind duplex scaling, invented by Theodore Steinway in 1872, is that the non-speaking portion of the string, located between the non-speaking bridge pin and the hitch pin (formerly considered the "waste end" and thus damped with a strip of cloth), resounds in sympathy with the vibrating portion of the string. Steinway's earliest employment of the duplex scale made use of aliquots, individually positionable (hence tunable) contact points, and it was discovered that each note of the duplex scale ideally bears a perfect harmonic, intervallic relationship to its speaking length, i.e., a fifth, octave, twelfth, double-octave, etc. Because it was difficult to correctly position each aliquot, Steinway abandoned individual aliquots for continuous cast metal bars, each comprising an entire section of duplex bridge points. Their feeling was that with an accurately templated bridge and carefully located duplex bar, the same result would be achieved with far less fuss.

Mason & Hamlin, however, embraced Theodore Steinway's original idea. They felt that the tuning of these short stretches of free string can be achieved with greater accuracy than can be attained with a duplex bar. With the fixed points of a duplex bar, small variations in casting are liable to produce imperfections in the duplex string lengths. Furthermore, since variations in humidity can cause duplex scales to move in pitch more rapidly than the speaking scale, manual readjustment of the string tension on the non-speaking side of the bridge, and/or a readjustment of the duplex position to better accommodate humidity fluctuation, is feasible with individual aliquots.

More recently, Fazioli has modified Theodore Steinway's original idea by creating a stainless-steel track, fixed to the cast iron plate, on which aliquots slide. This system improves the ease with which aliquots can be adjusted.

Four strings per note

Borgato pianos also feature four strings per note in the treble section. The fourth string is actually struck, and is not an aliquot string as in Blüthner pianos. This practice has been seen at various times in the history of the piano: an early example was given by Conrad Graf to Ludwig van Beethoven, and later examples are seen ca. 1900 (Luis Casali, Barcelona; see [1]) and 1940 (August Förster, see [2]).

Size

Fazioli has also made bold efforts in increasing the sheer size of the piano: their model F308 is the largest regular production piano currently built, being 10 feet 2 inches (3.08 m) long and one and a half times as heavy as today's concert standard, the Steinway Model D (The Rubenstein R-371 is a custom built piano that is 12 feet, 2 inches long (3.71 m), weighs 2500 lbs., and features a jig welded steel plate.).

Steinbuhler & Company[3] produce keyboards that are 7/8 and 15/16 normal size. The keyboards were designed to make it possible for players with smaller hands to play a larger range of music. The company sells keyboard inserts for Grand pianos and complete upright pianos with smaller (7/8) keyboards.

Pianos of unusual appearance

The Schimmel piano company, something of a free spirit among the great pedigreed German piano firms, has made bold experiments with the appearance of the piano. These include a grand piano whose rim, lid, and other case parts are made of transparent plastic. The acoustic properties of the acrylic material used are apparently excellent. However, the somewhat lurid--albeit quite resplendent--appearance of the acrylic piano, as well as its high cost, have kept it a novelty item in the Schimmel lineup. Schimmel has also teamed up with artists Otmar Alt and Luigi Colani to produce other pianos of breathtakingly unconventional appearance.

Digital innovations

Digital technology makes possible a vastly more sensitive and flexible version of the old player piano; for instance, the modern digital player piano can record as well as play. These pianos are often called 'hybrid pianos', as they have characteristics of both acoustic pianos (the piano sound is made by hammers on strings) and digital pianos (record/playback capability, as well as synthesizer and audio sound capability). Currently, five major manufacturers compete in this market; see links below. Further afield, the stringless electronic keyboard and digital piano continue to make progress. Especially useful for the musician playing popular music, their portability and range of synthesized sounds has made them exceedingly popular. While some imagine that research may make it possible for them some day to equal the piano in dynamic range, sensitivity of touch or quality of tone, professional classical pianists view this as highly unlikely. The demands of the piano literature--and the technical and tonal expectations of these pianists--are so complex that they feel there is little likelihood that digital keyboards will succeed in the acoustic piano realm.

Resources

Links to the companies mentioned above

• Astin-Weight pianos
• Blüthner pianos
• Borgato pianos
• Fandrich and Sons pianos
• Fazioli pianos
• Magnetic Balanced Action
• Mason and Hamlin pianos
• Rubenstein pianos
• Schimmel pianos
• Steinway and Sons pianos
• Stuart and Sons pianos

Digital player pianos

• Baldwin
• QRS
• PianoDisc
• Disklavier
• Yamaha
• Young Chang/Kurzweil
• Custom-made piano by Gene Korolev with Live Performance Player System Model LX

Other links

• A profile of piano designer Delwin Fandrich
• history of the grand piano - photoarchive
• "Shall We Improve the Piano?" by Ivor Darreg, 1967
• Calin Tantareanu, "Bridge agraffes, an alternative to traditional bridge pins", 2006

Inharmonicity in Grand Pianos, by Saratoga Pianos

A unique shop in California, built a custom made piano in 2007 PIANO SOLUTIONS XXI

Book

• Much of the above information is taken from The Piano Book by Larry Fine (4th edition 2001; Jamaica Plain, MA: Brookside Press; ISBN 1-929145-01-2), which contains a comprehensive survey of contemporary pianos.

External links

• Photos of all kinds of inventions in the piano