THE BABY BOOM

The basic physics tell a useful story. There’s vagueness as to what constitutes a baby grand, but in my experience it’s anything between 150-160cm in length (4ft 9in-5ft 2in). The shorter a grand piano, the smaller the soundboard and the shorter the speaking length of the strings. This means less depth and flexibility of tone and less dynamic capability. A full-length concert grand is around 9ft in length (280cm), which most homes can’t possibly accommodate physically or acoustically, and so compromises must be made.

Early pianos were straight strung, with every string from bass to treble running in a straight line to the end of the piano. In an overstrung piano the copper-wound bass strings run over the straight treble strings at an angle, enabling greater length. This demonstrates how important string length is for the overall