Those of you who say you tune unisons as you go didn't say whether you were doing aural or ETD tunings. I was talking about aural tunings. If I were doing ETD tunings, I would do it differently. Don Rose says tuning unisons as he goes saves him about 20 minutes per tuning over strip muting. That could not possibly save me 20 minutes per tuning because that's about the maximum time I usually spend in the middle of the piano in the first place, and I do tune unisons as I go in the bass and treble. The specific routine I follow depends upon what the condition of the piano is before I start. What I do not do is tune treble octaves by tuning the upper note to a three-string open-unison of the lower note. That will produce accumulating error every time. You can count on it. I tune single string to single string. Whether tuning unisios as you go produces more stable tunings, per se, is open to debate. In my opinion, it depends upon several factors, what the conditions are, and how you follow through in finishing up. Having said that, I will say this: If the piano is very far off pitch, and if you are doing an aural tuning, you are apt to end up with more accumulating error if you tune unisons as you go than if you don't, especially if you are tuning single strings to three-string open unisons. The routine I described in my previous post works for me, and I don't have stability problems unless the piano itself has a stability problem. PS: I just got a notice in the US Mail that former PTG President Charlie Huether and his wife Agnes now live at: Green Hill Retirement Community 103 Pleasant Valley Way West Orange, N.J. 07052 Sincerely, Jim Ellis
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