•The market value pretty much depends on the area you live. The price for the re-stringing, pinblock and soundboard repairs sounds reasonable. If you're lucky all it will really need is repinning with the next larger size pins. I've run into a number of the Ragtime pianos with loose pins and questio...

•I recently started investigating a rebuild of my Mason & Hamlin Ampico grand. It has the original strings, hammers and action with very little done to it since 1924. I had a highly-regarded piano technician evaluate the piano to advise me on what should be done. He told me that most of his clients ...

•In response to Kevin McElhone's request: the entire discography of the CD, "Festival of Strings", can be found online here: https://www.discogs.com/Various-Festival-Of-Strings/release/9572226 Kind regards, Thijs Haenen

Interesting ideas -- thanks for forwarding them. Personally, I wouldn't use GA's for this problem, at least with the genotype being a MIDI string (the phenotype being the .wav file). GA's are usually used when there are a bunch of different parameters interacting with each other in intractable ways...

For those of you with web access, point your forms-capable browsers to http://www.altavista.digital.com/ and enter the string "automatic music" (including the quotes) and give Digital's new search engine a spin. It pulled up about 100 references that I'm still tracing down. Don't try "music box", al...

Terry, Your solution is even simpler than you thought. When you have lost the bass strings, just make a large paper pattern using Kraft roll paper or butcher paper-- something heavy. You mark the position of each agraffe, stab the paper into the pins on the bridge and into the hitches so that you ca...

Terry Smythe asked about determining wire sizes for piano restringing. I have a book by John W. Travis, "A Guide to Restringing" which has the whole story, including equations for determining string length, tension and pitch, as well as a list of scales for most pianos. It has three scales for Kraka...

WOW! Many thanks for all those responses to my inquiry about determining wire sizes for a Krakauer grand with no strings. By chance, I did acquire with it a full set of new bass strings, but the documentation for wire sizes of the treble strings was missing. I am aware of the techniques that Craig m...

In the digest for 96.04.25, Craig Brougher says, in part: > The "cello-like" tones of a Mason-Hamlin are built around a very > high tension scale. So you can build a somewhat thicker bass string > with more mass and stretch it tighter to raise the pitch. This changes > the partials and ideally puts ...

Dear Jody, I heartily concur with Jim Canavan's comment pertaining to Robin's withdrawal. If we don't like the discussion, it is our own fault for not starting a string in topics more to out personal interest. What I know about MIDI other than very much enjoying the downloaded files which I play whi...

Hello Terry Smythe (and List), Terry, I looked at the illustration on your web page and believe the instrument shown MAY be a Symphonion String Orchestra (Symphonionfabrik A.G., Leipzig, as shown at the bottom of page 624 of Bowers. I happen to have a PARTIAL one of these in my garage which I am NEV...

Greetings to everyone, I have been restoring a Pratt-Read Player. The player mechanism itself it working well. I have found the following problem: When a note is played by hand, the hammer strikes the string an then backs off the string the requisite 5/8" as long as the note is held. However, when t...

Dear Gerard, you wrote: > Your wagering of tuning the Cordephon like a music box may be > right. I will ask my former colleague. He is the man constructing > the 60 string Cordephon, a disk-music-box. The Cordephon is > playing automatically with a big punched-metal disk, if the > spring-motor of th...

Many tuners are fearful that if they tune an old piano up to pitch, they are going to start breaking strings. There are several reasons for this, the least of which is not rotten strings or an asymetrically relaxed soundboard. But they might also profit from knowing something else about tension and ...

When a player piano bobbles its hammer, that means the hammer assembly is bouncing between the jack and the string, and so the back check can't catch it and hold it. Sometimes on uprights, even when the jack is sufficiently clear, a poorly regulated hammer will bobble between the check and the strin...

This occurs because the key or pneumatic has not pushed the wippen through sufficient travel for the jack to clear the hammer butt. First check distance of hammer from string; depending on the manufacturer: spinets - 1 5/8"; uprights - 1 3/4 to 2". Take up lost motion with the capstan screw. Level a...

I was watching a show on our own ABC television the other night, and I listened with great interest about the new innovations in piano construction by Australian inventor & piano builder Wayne Stewart. Apparently he has changed the design of the bridge pins so that the strings travel over it in a st...

I visited the web site which Michael Waters mentions. Mr. Alistair Riddell built an electric striking and sustaining mechanism which replaces the traditional keyboard and hammers in a grand piano. Each note has a simple solenoid which strikes the string directly. A separate, independently controlled...

•Robbie, you wrote: > I seem to remember "der Streichbart" in a recent German book as one > of the terms for the frein. Translated literally it's "string- > beard", and it possibly means "the little beard which makes the pipe > sound like a violin." I think this is true, not because I 'know' it, but...

•I finally located a Foster & Co. piano, with a really bad cabinet. The tone was gone so I decided to re-string it. Upon removing the plate I found out the plate was in two pieces: #1 the plate, #2 the part of the plate containing the name. The whole thing was made to look like one piece. This spark...