Keyboard Phenomena

A common occurrence where the capo bar is too hard or not properly shaped like a gentle and thin “U” causing wires to prematurely reach a certain state of fatigue at that deflection point, exacerbated by institutional use. You can hear, the wire wasn’t changing pitch at the time of snapping. Indeed, it was the rightmost string that broke, and I had only just moved the tip of my lever to the middle string. The rightmost wire circuit was shared with the half step above… so with not even my tool on that string yet, it pops. Just a handful of strikes left in its life when I began the note. This happens all the time and it’s really no big deal to fix, although always frustrating, which is audible in my reaction (apologies…). However, piano owners may understand how the stability of their piano is inherently compromised by such metal fatigue points. Clearly there had been plastic deformation in the steel at the upper terminus for some time, and this particular one decided to let go today. I have documentation of this treble section breakage on some of the five other MH model A pianos at the college. It’s somewhat like a camera shutter with an average maximum count of actuations before dying.

This was the aeolian era Mason Hamlin A #73037. Funny, that serial number is non-retrogradable i.e. a palindrome! By contrast, our golden era 1918 Mason Hamlin Ax6 has all its original plain wire and no string breakage… further evidence that would seem to suggest that those later aeolian cast iron plates were different…

However, the soundboard and crown retention system unique to all these Mason Hamlins makes the possibility for incredible sustain.