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Multibody dynamics as a tool for historical research

Study of an 18th century piano action of Johann Andreas Stein

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Abstract

Ancient musical instruments can tell us much about the way composers of the past centuries wrote their music. Indeed, the sound and playing characteristics of historical instruments are often very different from those of the instruments we are used to. For example, in the case of the Viennese piano actions used by Mozart and his contemporaries, the so-called “escapement height” largely conditions the response of the instrument to the pianist’s touch. In this contribution, we aim to define how the Viennese action behaves when the escapement height, usually tuned by piano technicians, is changed.

To do this, a multibody model containing the frame, the key, the hammer, the pawl, and the string has been developed. This paper describes how the model has been carried out; a special focus is put on the detection of the intermittent contacts between bodies, which may look easy in the real action, but is rather complex to model. The model is compared with high-speed imaging data and a parametric study of the escapement height is performed by adjusting the rest position of the pawl. The high sensitivity of this regulation is revealed as a shift of 1 mm of the pawl seems to induce a displacement of the escapement height of 20 mm. It is also shown that a strong but linear decrease of the maximal force between the hammer and the string appears when the escapement height increases.

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Notes

  1. The practice of “historically informed performances” consists in playing music while being aware of the historical background of its composition and performance. This usually implies that the piece of music is played on instruments contemporary of the music itself.

  2. Note that changing the spring preload not only changes its behavior during the motion of the action, but also changes the rest position of pawl, just like the first type of regulation.

  3. In later Viennese actions, the stop is an adjustable screw, which makes its regulation easier. Nonetheless, fine regulation can still be performed with pieces of paper.

  4. Let us recall that the key is depressed with a 100 g mass, causing a movement that cannot be considered as quasi-static anymore.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Musical Instruments Museum Brussels for its help, and more particularly Pierre Gevaert, the piano technician of the museum.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research in Energy and Mechatronics, Université catholique de Louvain, Place du Levant 2, bte L5.04.02, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Baudouin Bokiau & Paul Fisette

  2. Centre de recherche en musique-musicologie, Université catholique de Louvain, Place Blaise Pascal, 1, bte L3.03.13, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Anne-Emmanuelle Ceulemans

Authors
  1. Baudouin Bokiau
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  2. Anne-Emmanuelle Ceulemans
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  3. Paul Fisette
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Correspondence to Baudouin Bokiau.

Additional information

This research is funded by the FNRS-FRESH Fonds de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines.

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Bokiau, B., Ceulemans, AE. & Fisette, P. Multibody dynamics as a tool for historical research. Multibody Syst Dyn 37, 15–28 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11044-015-9498-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11044-015-9498-z

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