Did Cross-Stringing Ruin Piano Tone?

Did we ruin piano tone? Going from straight-strung pianos to over-strung or cross-stringing like in your piano? You're going to find out today, better than that, you're going to hear a sample of a concert grand made in 1870, meticulously restored, chickering, and then a modern -scale design Baldwin from the 20th century playing exactly the same Chopin excerpt. So you can hear for yourself what this difference is.

First of all, what is cross -stringing anyway? Well, cross -stringing was an attempt by piano builders to have longer strings and smaller pianos. It actually started in the 1820s and a man named Chris Monet, he built a little piano and he decided to cross the strings over one another, having two bridges, one for the strings that went this way, one for the strings that went that way, to be able to get longer strings out of this little cabinet.

It wasn't really until the 1850s where Steinway made a square grand piano with cross -stringing, and that was the beginning of the end for straight -strung pianos. By the end of the 1800s, virtually all pianos just about were being made with cross -stringing. So it was a challenge for the pianists to be able to have longer strings in the piano and, more than that, to have the bridges more centrally located. Because if you have strings straight -strung all the way across at the tail of the piano, so many of the strings are all the way in the perimeter.

But what's the disadvantage? And why are pianists like Baron Boym have a resurgence in straight -strung pianos working with piano builders today in Belgium like Chris Monet? Well, you're going to hear for yourself. I'm going to show you on this Steinway Model S, just like all pianos made today, this has cross -stringing. And the strings change from one bridge to another bridge between B and B -flat, and you can hear the difference in the tone of these two notes.

Now I'm going to go up a little higher and then down a little lower so you can hear from B to B -flat the change of tone.

Do you hear that difference? Now, what Steinway did in the scale design of the Model S and all different piano manufacturers tried to overcome this inherent problem with cross -stringing in various ways. On this piano, Steinway went from the three steel strings to the two copper -wound strings right between E -flat and D. So there's a little subtle change there going from three strings on the E -flat to two strings with copper -wound on the D.

But it's not nearly as pronounced as the difference between going from one bridge to another.

And this is why pianists like Baron Boim and others are starting to want to play on historically accurate instruments for the music that was written for it in the 1800s. Listen to two examples for yourself and see what you prefer. This is a little bit of Chopin, an intersection of the A-flat, instantly recorded exactly the same way with the same microphones, the same piece of music so you can really hear for yourself. Check it out.

Thanks for watching.

you I am really interested in your opinion of what you just heard.

Leave in the comments here at LivingPianos .com. I'm Robert Estrin. I welcome these comments and there isn't a right or wrong answer to this. I'm wondering what you prefer and more than that, what the sonic differences are. Once again, the benefit to cross -stringing, obviously, you get longer strings, you get more centrally located bridges on the soundboard to transfer sound, you lose the continuity and the smoothness from the top to the bottom and yes, there is a different tone.

I'm interested in everybody's opinion of this so let's get the conversation going. Once again, this is LivingPianos.com, your online piano store. Thanks so much for joining me.

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