Theory and Practice of Piano Construction. William Braid White
entirely. The great gap in the middle of the structure, required for the passage of the hammers, entailed dangerous weakness, against which no reasonable weight of iron bracing has ever seemed to prevail. Again, the fact that the bass keys, where the strength of the blow and the leverage of the action need to be greatest, were the shortest of all, while the extreme treble keys were longest, always tended to destroy the touch proportions and entailed much counter-balancing and other operations which were, however, but makeshifts at the best. Moreover, the development of the grand type led to rivalry among those makers who confined themselves chiefly to the square, with the result that the latter was made more and more heavy and cumbrous in an effort to catch up with the fundamental advantage which the grand pianoforte possessed on account of its superior design. Besides, the square was never a thing of beauty, and its increasing size was by no means an advantage in this respect, so that when the rapidly growing population of the great American cities began to make living room continually more valuable, the claims of the small, powerful, elegant, and moderate-priced upright soon were successfully asserted. As a last consideration, it should be mentioned that the makers of square pianofortes were never able to apply to it a mechanism having the elasticity and rapid repetition that belong to the Erard grand action or the tape-check device of Wornum, which is universal in the upright.
In view of all these disadvantages, it is no longer a matter for wonderment that the upright pianoforte succeeded the square as a bidder for domestic favor, while the larger and more highly evolved grand remained the choice of professional musicians.
The commercial development of the upright pianoforte, as we have remarked, began at a comparatively recent period. In this country, owing to the popularity of the square, we find that the upright was late in coming into favor. Its development, however, had been going on in Europe since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The “cabinet” piano of Southwell and the “upright grand” of Hawkins were examples of early attempts in this line, but it remained for the genius of Robert Wornum to place the upright instrument on a truly practical footing. This was accomplished through his invention of “the tape-check action,” which at once put the upright pianoforte upon an equal plane of efficiency with the prevailing types and assured its rapid adoption. By the end of the first half of the nineteenth century the upright piano had become firmly established as the home instrument throughout Europe, and about the same time began to appear among American products. As soon as American manufacturers took hold of it, they set about making vast improvements upon European models; and we may properly date the modern development of the upright from this time. Americans were responsible for the adoption of overstrung iron-framed scales, and for the increase in size and power which now makes our best instruments of this class equal, if not superior, to the grands of a few years ago.
The later history of the upright, not less than of the grand, is a simple record of continuous improvement in details of workmanship and material, in beauty of case design and in scientific construction of scale. It is not necessary, for the purpose of this short sketch, to enter into the familiar modern history of manufacturing the various types of pianoforte, either in this country or abroad; but we may note, incidentally, that European makers have adopted more and more American inventions and improvements, so that the modern, up-to-date pianoforte owes a great part of its present efficiency to the genius of the great American makers, although these, of course, have worked along the great principles that Broadwood, Chickering, Steinway, Weber, Knabe, Erard and others laid down.
Thus we have surveyed, though truly in a somewhat hurried manner, the interesting history of the growth and development of the pianoforte of to-day. The reader will forgive the brief and sketchy nature of this bird’s-eye view, when he recollects that our purpose in this book is to lay down the correct principles of modern design, rather than to analyze those principles from an historical standpoint. Some of the laws that we shall have occasion to expound have already been noted here. In the succeeding chapters these and others will be considered in the light of their scientific and practical application.
CHAPTER III.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MODERN PIANOFORTE.
The pianoforte of to-day is the most complex and ingenious of musical instruments. With the possible exception of the pipe-organ, there is no existing tone apparatus that combines within itself the product of so many varied industries. Both as to the raw material and the finished parts, this instrument draws its tonal charm, in the ultimate analysis, as much from the saw-mill, the machine shop and the iron foundry as from the forest and the mine. Trees of the forest, ore from the mines—even the wooly coats of the peaceful sheep—alike contribute their share to the completion of the wonderful product of musico-mechanical ingenuity that we recognize in the modern pianoforte.
In such circumstances as these, it is easy to understand that the commercial production of these instruments is a formidable undertaking. To the musical and technical skill that is essential must now be added large capital and a great manufacturing plant. The moderate prices at which it is at present possible to sell pianofortes would not be maintained for a moment without this modern system of productive concentration and distributive expansion. The application of such business systems to the production of an essentially artistic structure has had the double effect of cheapening the selling price and improving the quality.
This is not the place to go into details of the organization of a modern pianoforte factory, but we may very properly devote some moments to a consideration of the main points of construction that are observable in the pianofortes of the day. Critical analysis of these points will be in order later on in the course of the present work. For the moment we shall be content with obtaining a bird’s-eye view, as it were, of that which we are later to dissect and criticise.
There are to-day two distinct and prevailing types of pianoforte. These are the “upright” and the “grand.” Of the once popular “square” it is unnecessary here to do more than say that the type has passed into a state of obsolescence and is fast dying out. Both structurally and tonally, it was most defective; and its popularity was due rather to the imperfect development of the other types during the period of its vogue than to any inherent advantages of its own. It has well and faithfully served its appointed time, and we may properly leave it to die in peace.
For the last thirty years in this country and for considerably longer in Europe, the upright, succeeding the square as a home instrument, has remained victorious. Its small size and great convenience, together with the surprising tonal capacity that has been developed in it in the United States, have universally commended it, and only the development of the very small grand has lately seemed to be threatening its long unchallenged supremacy.
The exterior form of an upright is familiar to all. If we strip from it all the outer appendages, and then remove the action and keys, we shall at once see that the instrument consists essentially of a sound-board and a frame, the latter partly wooden and partly metallic, upon which are stretched strings of regularly graduated lengths and thicknesses. Attached to this framing are two more or less ornate wooden erections which are denominated the “sides” of the instrument, while a horizontal wooden shelf, called the “key-bed,” serves to join the sides and support the keys and their frame.
The strings of an upright are arranged vertically from the top to the bottom of the framing already described, with the exception of those which serve the bass notes. These are strung diagonally over the treble strings. It will also be observed that the strings become progressively shorter as the scale ascends until the speaking lengths at the highest notes are two inches or less. The thickness also varies directly as the length. The material of which the strings are made is cast-steel wire, and the overstrung bass strings are, in addition, covered with copper or iron wire. These strings, in order that they may be maintained at the proper tensions and in the correct positions, must be supported by suitable framing. The demands of modern construction require that the framing be most massive. We have already cast a hurried glance at it, and may now proceed to describe it in more detail. First of all, however, it is necessary to investigate the apparatus that amplifies the sound waves projected from the strings and transforms them into the pleasing tones of the pianoforte. We must, in