Hi again Chris,
Good questions. What you tended to see with the smaller wheels was a
smaller complement of strings. Three (one chanter, one tenor drone,
one bass drone) was the most common number (and still is the norm for
many of the folk instruments from Central/Eastern Europe that missed
out on the innovations in wheel design in the West. Symphonies, which
tended to have even smaller wheels, also had the three strings as the
norm.
One trick that can be used to gain a bit of room for strings with a
small wheel is to design with a curved soundboard (usually not
carved, but bent) with the bearings as high up as you can put them.
Then the curve allows you to get lower on the wheel. It also has an
advantage (although I don't know how big it is) in that it puts the
chien in a more optimal geometry with respect to the wheel. I'd be
skeptical of mounting the bearing over the soundboard if you want the
chien to work though...
Hope that helps.
-Arle
On Feb 3, 2007, at 11:50 PM, Chris Nogy wrote:
Great as a starting place.
Now I'm still just studying physics on these animals, but it seems
to me that a chien would be most responsive when it is placed so
that it contacts the wheel just above the horizontal center at
rest, but that it would be most consistent placed some distance
higher on the arc.
If 14 cm (about 5.5 inches give or take?) would be the practical
limit of a solid wheel, then in order to get 2 chanters, 2 drones
and a trompette the wheel would have to be mounted with the
bearings very close to the soundboard (to give enough room for
everything - 2 inches or so gets eaten up very quickly).
Would there every have been a situation where the bearings and
shaft were mounted above the soundboard?
Just trying to get some more practical guidelines.
Thanks
Chris Nogy
