[CAUT] Steinway 1098

[David Love]

Couldn't agree more on all those points.  

 

David Love

www.davidlovepianos.com

 

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Sturm
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 6:58 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway 1098

 

On Dec 3, 2008, at 11:21 PM, David Love wrote:





We should differentiate in this continuing discussion between being able to
tune one and enjoying tuning one.  There are many pianos that are poorly
designed in terms of tuning pin flag polling that anyone with experience is
capable of tuning.  Give me a me a piano the ease of which might lull me
into a false sense of security (a fairly absurd supposition) anytime.

 

            And there are definitely various things which lead one piano to
be easier or harder to tune than another. To get a solid tuning, the pin has
to be moved very precisely to just the right position, on any piano. All
well and good. But pins behave and feel differently depending on various
factors, and 1098s of older vintage did/do have that flag-poling extra
springiness that makes it difficult to feel small movements of the pin in
the block. Coupled with, often, excess friction and a long string length
between speaking length and tuning pin. Combine the worst of that, and it
can definitely be a piano that isn't fun to tune, like many Baldwin grands
of fairly recent vintage (with the 1000 ply pinblock, 500 lb pin torque, and
various unmuted and unmutable addition duplex style string segments). One
has to wrestle with every single darned pin.

             I agree, ease of tuning is a definite plus when selecting an
instrument, because it is more likely to be in fine tune more of the time
(among other things, a less skilled tuner will be more able to do an
adequate job), and will take less of the tech's time and effort for tuning,
leaving more for other maintenance. And it will make for a happier tuner.


Regards,

Fred Sturm

University of New Mexico

fssturm at unm.edu

 

 

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