...Regarding the Upright [Piano]..

Dear Saverio, the lack of readiness can depend on a thousand reasons.......how can I perform a remote diagnosis?

Beats are caused by differences in frequency. If we have an A tuned to 440 and its neighboring string at 441, we would say that one beat per second is produced. It is clear that this also occurs with harmonic sounds (8 or rather partials). Thus, beats are produced, for example, on a fifth if the common harmonics deviate from each other in frequency. In practice, we can listen to them by lowering or raising the respective "out-of-phase" frequency.

I hope I have clarified the concept, even if only partially.

pianoexpert wrote:

Beats are caused by frequency differences. If we have an A tuned to 440 and its nearby string at 441, we would say that one beat per second is produced.

The concept of beating is well explained mathematically by performing the sum of two periodic vibrations (such as sound) with very close frequencies f1 and f2. Anyone who has studied a bit of mathematics can easily derive the expression for the sum of two elementary vibrations, which immediately shows the nature of the resulting vibration; unlike the first two, it does not have a constant gain (to mean the volume of a radio), but also an oscillating gain: what we hear as the result is a "cyclic sound" and not a nice, steady amplitude (volume).

The frequency of the resulting wave can be quantified just as its gain can be quantified by observing the expression of the sum function. Without going into details, it is obtained that given two vibrations of close frequency (440 and 441 Hz for example), the composite vibration is characterized by a frequency f = (f1+f2)/2 [example (440+441)/2=440.5 Hz] while its gain oscillates at a frequency F = (f2-f1)/2 [example (441-440)/2=0.5 Hz].

A vibration of 1 Hz performs one cycle (after which it repeats identically) in 1 second (the oscillation period is given by the inverse of the frequency) and in each cycle, the oscillation contains "two peaks" over time: a maximum and a minimum.

And this same phenomenon, invisible to the human eye, is found in our home electrical grid; the grid frequency is 50 Hz, which means that 50 are the complete oscillations per second of the current, meaning the light bulb turns on and off 100 times in a second (each cycle consists of one turning on and one turning off).

Having clarified this, it is clear that a beating frequency of 0.5 Hz makes our ear perceive "half a cycle per second" in terms of "volume" (the complete oscillation would occur in 2 seconds) and therefore an amplitude variation of the sound in one second, i.e., 1 beat per second. The variation in the amplitude of the resulting vibration is called the envelope by mathematicians; the number of peaks in one second is equivalent to the number of beats.

There are curious cases, and I don't know what effects they have on an unison for practical purposes; I have never had the chance to hear if something pleasant can be derived from certain combinations, for example:

suppose we have two strings of the same pitch tuned at 439 Hz and the other at 441 Hz. The resulting frequency in terms of "sound pitch" would be (439 + 441)/2=440 Hz, which is equivalent to the oscillation frequency of the central A. However, we wouldn't have a nice, steady A with constant amplitude, but an oscillating sound with a frequency equal to (441-439)/2 = 1 Hz, meaning with 2 beats... by bringing the frequencies of the two strings closer and closer, one would have increasingly slower oscillations; by moving them further apart, one has faster oscillations instead...

For example, listening to Horowitz's piano, I have always wondered how the hell... the beats were placed in that case....the single note was never a blasted straight sound, it oscillated slowly....just listen to the notes of the song here!! Franz Mohr, explain to us!!! I cannot ask my tuners these things since it is already too much if when they leave the house the octaves sound good...

And don't tell me that it depends on the quality of the instrument and the recording; pink noise does not introduce oscillations... don't even bring up string length because in the example reported on the notes of the song, they are not extremely long strings... I have shown you with numbers that an A can oscillate in infinite different ways, I showed you in a video that unisons already oscillate at the attack of the sound, sometimes they seem like rubber bands... the instrument is excellent....like this one, for that matter:

but you don't hear the same effect; the touch is obviously different but it doesn't affect the specific phenomenon, the instrument is different but that seems like a negligible factor to me....the tuner is different.... opinions?

Finally, the performance which I consider the best; listen to how even here the notes fluctuate in a particular way, more delicate... needless to say, great pianist and great tuner:

Open content (youtube)

Open content (youtube)

Open content (youtube)

Well done Bro, if you can it would be nice to show everyone the envelope curve by commenting on it on the graph you posted.

For example, listening to Horowitz's piano, I always wondered how the hell... the beats were set in that case.... the single note was never a straight shot sound, it oscillated slowly.... just listen to the singing notes here!!

Think about it, it's something Paolo told me a few months ago... I'm glad you noticed, you have an excellent ear!

In any case, in those videos, the effect is also enhanced by the type of tape recording which, as it ages, produces these effects during playback. In reality, if recorded today with digital equipment, it would be less evident. The proof is that you didn't hear it in Zimerman's performance; they are there too, but the recording techniques are more recent.

It is a common practice adopted in concert pianos, but also in the accordion, which however comes from the organ. Some organ notes (those closest to the range of the human voice) have two pipes, one perfectly tuned and the other slightly flat or sharp. This serves to produce beats that imitate the vibrato of the human voice. This technique was then adopted in the piano in the same way by slightly detuning one of the three strings in the middle register (the left string), but it is used mainly in concert pianos that already have a particularly expressive timbre and, moreover, a string length that helps achieve this almost imperceptible misalignment. Obviously, for shorter strings, it is more difficult to misalign a string so little from the other two (difficult, but obviously not impossible).

It would also be interesting to talk about binaural beats, but rather than mathematics, in this case we would enter into phenomena categorized as psychoacoustic.

Binaural techniques, even in the context of studio recording, always produce excellent results! It would be worth opening a separate discussion on this phenomenon.

TheSimon wrote:

Obviously, for shorter strings it is harder to misalign a string so little from the other two (difficult but obviously not impossible).

Either tuners are all stupid, and they aren't, or one must make the best of a bad situation... to keep things moving with 4 tunings a day, they have to be done since people don't want to spend more than 100 euros! In two hours, perhaps there isn't much time to perform "ad hoc" detunings. 😆

I don't think the problem is the timing... When tuning unisons, it takes nothing to leave a string slightly flat or sharp to achieve that effect. The problem is that on some pianos doing this works well, but on other pianos it doesn't. I don't think I have ever heard an upright tuned this way. Therefore, the crux of the matter is also a question of intonation and timbre. Pink can look good on some people and not on others...

TheSimon wrote:

I don't think the problem is the tempo... When tuning unisons, it takes nothing to leave a string slightly flat or sharp to give that effect. The problem is that on some pianos doing this sounds good, on other pianos it doesn't. I don't think I have ever heard an upright tuned this way. Therefore, the crux of the matter is also a question of intonation and timbre. Pink can look good on some people and not on others...

Simone, if we want to loosen a string in a unison as it comes, I agree that tempo doesn't matter, but I didn't mean that. Probably on a home practice piano there is no sense in doing it because after just two days the tuning would need to be redone... so they say it's worth doing precise work since after two/three days all the unisons have moved and we have plenty of beats. Anyway, trust me, above the orchestra tempo is definitely a problem 😆

For example, listening to Horowitz's piano, I have always wondered how the fuck... the beats were placed in that case....the single note was never a straight shot sound, it oscillated slowly....just listen to the notes of the singing here!! Franz Mohr, explain it to us!!! I cannot ask my tuners these things since it is already too much if when they leave the house the tenths sound good...

It's true, it has a sound... I would say almost similar to that of a cello vibrato... truly curious!

Bro wrote:

Anyway, trust me, above the PO [Po River], the weather is definitely a problem 😆

Well, thank goodness I'm in Rome! 😆

So, what Simone says is correct. It is not easy to achieve. It requires a good tuner ...and a good instrument. To be achieved ONLY on the grand piano.

The left string goes slightly out of tune, which when playing with the other two simultaneously produces a cantabile sound. When using the "una corda" pedal, "that" specific string is excluded and then it is fine like that. If one were to perform the "trick" on the right one (I have heard some tuners declare it!!!!!!), you would have one against one....a disaster!!!!!

Ah.. interesting... if I understood correctly, the left string goes slightly out of tune by one note, obtaining two "tuned" strings and one in slight dissonance, which acts on the other two... obtaining a singable and melodic sound? But! Generally, on what type of piano can this be done? Thanks Paolo! Bye! Francesco1797Paris

a very slight fluctuation of the sound. It can be done on good grand pianos with fairly new strings

Hi Fra, in fact I had also always noticed this particular cantability in that performance but........the recording itself certainly has an effect too, as it fluctuates quite a bit. This discussion is very intelligent, truly beautiful! Thanks to everyone.

Fra wrote:

Anyway, trust me that above the Po, the weather is definitely a problem.

Maestro Sergio Griffa, I think he could do it in the dark and with his left hand.

Every time I have the honor of being able to visit him in his workshop, I am stunned.

When he first made me sit at his 290 Imperial, it felt like being Karajan in front of his best orchestra.

CIIIF pianos that sounded identical to excellent D Steinways... I don't know what to say in words.

I sincerely wish that in your lives you may come into contact with him at least once.

foster12 wrote:

CIIIF pianos that sounded identical to excellent D Steinways... I don't know what to say in words.

From this statement, I draw two conclusions (one excludes the other):

1 - You have never tried a great Steinway grand piano

2 - You tried a great Steinway grand piano that was destroyed, truly and properly destroyed.

Just recently, I heard again a well-prepared Steinway grand piano at the Auditorium della Conciliazione. It didn't just sound, it sang!

I take the liberty of letting you listen to a small excerpt from a video by Paolo, where he gifts us a Chopin gem, recorded on his Steinway mod. B (211 centimeters, thus over half a meter less than the CF if I'm not mistaken, which is about 270, I don't remember exactly) with truly ridiculous equipment because we hadn't thought of recording the piano but rather using it for speech, but then we had the idea to make a small piano introduction talking about the piano and so we arranged that equipment to also record the piano. I used two Behringer B1 microphones (microphones that cost 100 euros each). To decently record a piano, you would need either DPA 4006A (2500 euros each, so 5000 euros to record a piano) or, to save a little and always get excellent results, one should opt for two Neumann KM 184 (About 1200 euros for the pair); Charteroak or Shoeps are also excellent, all items over 1000 euros per microphone. We did not use dedicated microphone preamplifiers but only the pres from the sound card, which were not bad in terms of color but perhaps a bit noisy with background noise (a Terratek Phase 88 Firewire rack) instead of a nice Avalon 737 Vacuum tube preamp, and an AD Aurora converter (here we are talking about equipment that approaches 10,000 euros just to record a piano, while we were using maybe 1,000 euros worth of stuff). No equalization was added to the recording, only a pinch of reverb to give some ambience to the sound; I say only a pinch and you will realize it is truly nothing because in the pedal releases its noise is very sharp, nothing more, practically a direct recording almost without any post-processing. Listen to what came out... (I recommend listening to both in headphones to fully appreciate them).

http://www.pianoconcerto.it/condivisione/steinb.mp3

Now I am posting a recording I made with my Kawai KG2S (it is a modest studio piano and this recording was not intended for a professional recording at all, but was played approximately since I was more concerned about the sound coming out of the headphones, just to test the new equipment I have) with more adequate instrumentation for a piano: two small-capsule cardioid KM 184s (for stereo recording, the smaller the capsule the better) with a Roland V-Studio interface with good microphone preamps, truly very low noise. As you will hear, there is a lot of post-production because the piano is small. To hide defects caused by excessive hammer felt compression and thus a very strong attack (the manufacturer did this to avoid the suffering sonority that would have resulted from less compressed hammers = less attack), I had to add quite a bit of wet reverb while subtracting the dry signal (it is a technique to soften the sound). Despite all these measures, it has nothing to do with the sound of a Steinway Mod. B, which always results in being fuller, richer, rounder, and balanced between highs and lows. I should also mention that my piano was tuned and voiced not long ago. Of course, comparing a Steinway B with a studio Kawai... Well, these were comparable.

http://www.pianoconcerto.it/condivisione/kawaikg.mp3

I would like to continue by emphasizing that in the Steinway audio file there is absolutely no post-production and the equipment was not adequate for a certain type of recording (stereo recording)... Recorded, added only a pinch of reverb and that's it, done the bounce. In the case of my Kawai, there was massive post-production despite being recorded with equipment designed for stereo recordings. The signal was equalized, slightly compressed, and two types of reverb were added, the second via bus. Stereo spreading techniques were added. In short, a real lot of work and the result is only quite sufficient after hours and hours of post-processing! Both pianos were recorded using the A-B technique.

TheSimon wrote:

1 - You have never tried a Steinway grand piano

I feel obliged to specify that I have tried 3 St.D models

1) from a private individual, year 1982,

2) from a private individual year 2001

3) Griffa company "unknown year"

The first one was "worked on" by Maestro Fabbrini.

TheSimon wrote:

From this statement, I draw two conclusions ...

I strongly advise you to go visit M.o Sergio G. when you pass through Milan. He is near Porta Romana, almost always in the laboratory.

Otherwise, we are just talking nonsense.

As a scientist, I do not have an answer as to why those two specimens played in such a damnably similar and masterful way.

As an amateur pianist, even less so.

Even though I am the lowest of the low, I was told that I was not the only one to fall for the test of comparison, but also pianists of a certain level.

I hope you meet him in person. When I first met him, I couldn't sleep at night. In a good way.

... and I am not joking. And I believe Allevi knows it.

One last thing. The tests I conducted were never "biased." On the contrary, I have always had a hint of skepticism.

And yet, I had to change my mind.

As a final curiosity, I add that after Horotwitz's death, the piano ended up in Griffa's laboratory. And my teacher at the time had the honor of being able to play it, also verifying the peculiar characteristics of its key dip (end-stop).

Well, it's clear we are talking about thin air and unfortunately I am like St. Thomas: if I don't see it, I don't believe in fairy tales. As you might have noticed if you've taken a stroll through the forum, I always try to justify the assertions I make with some "proof," especially if I encounter an audience quite contrary to the argument being formulated. Anyway, I feel compelled to say that if this Yamaha has had its action rebuilt, the string calculation redone, work performed on the soundboard, etc. etc., well then it is no longer a Yamaha and, anyway, in my opinion, inferior to a Steinway which is born that way by design. I would like to know what Pianoexpert thinks. Honestly, I don't think I'm coming to Milan; I have no business or piano-related reasons for the moment, so I think it will be very difficult, but you never say never in life. In any case, I would like to hear a recording. If you can, the next time you happen to be around... We'll see.