One string, two notes

[fumbler]

Hi,

I was looking at the base of my upright (pedal squeak) the other day. In the centre and treble sections each note has three strings. These strings are laid out in pairs in elongated U's. The string travels down from the tuning pin, swan-necks past two pins in the lower pin block, around a large holding pin at the bottom of the frame, and back up again to the second tuning pin. The third string however travels back up to the tuning pin of the adjacent semitone. Every note in the centre/treble section shares a string with its neighbour note.

I guess there's nothing rare about this, and the piano plays fine. I'm just curious why tensioning one 'side' of a string doesn't affect the other side. This would affect the pair of strings within one note, let alone the pair shared between notes. Is it all just down to friction?

Rgds.

[Barrie Heaton]

The are called return strings you don’t find many new pianos with all eye strings Bluthners have them on their grands can’t remember if Bechstein still use them eye string do give a more stable tuning when they settle down but return string are cheaper to put on and there is very little movement once they are up to pitch

Barrie,