[Harp-L] Re: Winslow's bending and stiff reeds experiment

["riccardo\.scotti-mail\@poste\.it" <riccardo.scotti-mail@xxxxxxxx>]

Wow, Winslow, what a great experiment! I'm a harp newby 
but I'll try to brave my shyness, my laziness and my 
English to explain what happened to me. 
I disassembled a C harp and I played the 1st hole blow 
reed simply by inhaling, it was a C. Then I bent the pitch 
down playing a B: the reed seemed to bend downward (i.e. 
toward my mouth), the vibrational amplitude reduced and 
the center of vibration seemed to shift near the free end 
of the reed. Then I blow bent the pitch. Oh, hell! It was 
more complicated to investigate what happened, but it 
seemed to me that increasing the pitch (from a note 
between C and C# to D) the reed bent upward (i.e. toward 
the mirror), the center of vibration  shifted near the 
reed free end and the amplitude decreased.

So it seems to me that: the reed bends in both experiments 
but not in the same direction, it goes away from the 
reedplate blow bending, while approaches it draw bending.

I apologize if my explanation is a little incomprehensible.

Regards
Riccardo