On 23 Feb 2008 at 21:28, Owain Sutton wrote:

> I've played a piece where all four strings are
> gradually detuned by two assistants, over the course of several minutes,
> to the point where the bridge falls down.  And when discussing this
> piece, many other players have said they would never do this, the
> soundpost would fall, or the shifting pressures on the body would be
> prone to causing cracking (yeah right, like they keep it at a constant
> humiditiy, too), or the universe would implode, etc.  None of these has
> happened yet.

While I agree that the concerns over tuning one or two strings a half 
or whole step away from normal are completely overblown, there really 
*is* a danger when the bridge is down, and that's that the post falls 
over (which is *good*, since it releases the tension), or that the 
post could poke through the top of the instrument. William Monical 
describes a stringed instrument as a lever balanced on a point, the 
bridge, and that balance can be limited to a fairly tight range.

If my instrument were going to have the bridge down for any length of 
time, I'd definitely want to knock the post out of place.

-- 
David W. Fenton                    http://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates       http://dfenton.com/DFA/


_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale

Reply via email to