harmonically incompatible , ….. two are bearable, but three are often noisy and unbearable… a very poor compromise. ⁵²³

String terminations:

Wayne Stuart: –
All these strings on the Steinway piano are terminated by an agraffe on the tuning pin plate and a
dense felt stringing pillow at one end with two bridge pins at the other. In the Stuart piano one of
two agraffes is housed in a capo bar with a counter agraffe on the tuning pin plate with a dense
felt stringing pillow behind that. At the other end is a bridge agraffe. The deflection of the string pathway is fundamentally different and thus, the attack and decay transients.⁵²⁴

Vertical Concepts.

Wayne Stuart:-
Wayne Stuart maintains a position that his piano design is a reaction to significant changes in Western artistic aesthetics that date back to the Impressionist movement from around the mid 1860s. By increasing the importance of the harmonic and dynamic aspects of the sound envelope (vertical) to the time and ethos focused tradition (horizontal), enabled an explosion in radical new ways of expression. The old narrow European tradition expanded to embrace a ‘world music’ that reflects not one particular idea of sound but has potential to integrate with may traditions where vertical or ‘colour’ based sound has been the cultural preference.
Stuart’s vision is for a multi dimensional orchestral approach to piano tone building where both the vertical and horizontal elements of the attack and decay transients of the sound envelope are integrated and explored.⁵²⁵

The sound fashion adopted for the acoustic piano of the 20th century is fundamentally an American ideology and aesthetic. It is not culturally nor universally representative but rather, reigns as a consequence of political and economic dominance.⁵²⁶

Wayne Stuart:
Stuart’s observations of string vibration behaviour and music composition over the past 150 years reveals that the vertical mode of vibration in sound behaviour has developed as the dominant factor in current sound behaviour aesthetics. The old pinned bridge favours an elliptical vibration mode whereas the Stuart agraffe favours the vertical mode.⁵²⁷
(see p.58 chpt.2 Part.I)

‘Controlled manner’ –Stuart & Sons website
Vertical string coupling is at the core of the Stuart & Sons design concept. A special device [the Stuart bridge agraffe] is used to couple the strings to the bridge and soundboard structure. The agraffe defines the string’s speaking length (frequency) and contains the reaction forces produced by bending the strings as they pass through it. This scientifically designed device encourages the strings to vibrate in a more controlled manner improving the dynamic range, increasing sustain and significantly improving tonal clarity sympathetic to the entire piano repertoire.528

Eric Tamm- Vertical gradations of timbre.

Most traditional and popular music unfolds horizontally with time, and the listener hears the music as if listening to a verbal statement, thesis or argument. In recent years, many composers have become interested in creating a type of music to be heard vertically or spatially: the listener finds himself or herself at the center of a universe of sound whose details can be inspected at leisure. Such music tends to rely on subtle gradations of timbre rather than on the traditional elements of melodic and harmonic development and progression.⁵²⁹

⁵²³ Wayne Stuart, email interview with author, 5th March, 2014.
⁵²⁴Wayne Stuart email interview with author, 24th March, 2014.
⁵²⁵Wayne Stuart,email interview with author, 18th April ,2011.
⁵²⁶ibid
⁵²⁷ Wayne Stuart, email interview with author, 4th April ,2012.
^{528     11} Stuart &Sons Handcrafted Pianos, accessed 14th May 2015.“Innovations”
⁵²⁹ Eric Tamm, Brian Eno, His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound, (New York : Da Capo Press, 1995), 3-4.