[CAUT] interesting alternative tuning experience

[reggaepass at aol.com]

Hi Don,


Interesting point about plate flex, but wouldn't that affect all notes rather than explain why only those notes that had been previously tuned sharp and left there for so long crept back up (while many of their neighboring notes which had been near or below standard pitch did not)?

There was no particular pattern to how the unisons went out after the first re-tuning visit.  And yes, the bass was much more where it was supposed to be after the initial re-tuning, but none of the bass notes had been taken so extremely sharp to begin with.

Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: Don <pianotuna at accesscomm.ca>
To: caut at ptg.org
Sent: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 4:45 am
Subject: Re: [CAUT] interesting alternative tuning experience




Hi Alan,
I have not had the identical scenario--but did have one large upright many
ears ago that had been tuned 100 cents sharp and had been there for ten
ears. It did just about what the sharp strings on your piano did. I.E.
rept back sharp about 90 cents after the first tuning. Plate flex takes
ime to "relax"
You don't mention how you found the unisons. Was there a "pattern" to them
s well (one string sharper than the rest?)
I also suspect that the bass was more stable than the wound strings. Yes/no?
At 07:26 PM 12/16/2008 -0500, you wrote:
List,  
      I just had my second go-around at trying to get a piano that had been
tuned in an unusual way for a long time back to "normal".  It was in a
tuning that had 
some notes near normal tension, others up to a quarter-tone
flat, and still others as far sharp(!). Â In addition, the piano had been
in that tuning for the past eight years (most of them in Germany--it is a
1904 Schwechten grand with a bridge design I've not seen before). Â     
      On my first visit to start the long journey home to equal temperament
at A=440, I started by doing a pass using the pitch-change function on an
Accutuner (which determines off-sets for each note independently of what
came before, and I measured for every note). Â That got it close enough to
follow immediately with a straight machine tuning (with recalculated FAC),
unisons-as-you-go from A0 to C8. Â The piano had been vastly transformed,
although I cautioned that there were no guarantees how long it would sound
in tune.     
      The owner reported that the piano started going out of tune within
weeks of the last servicing. Â When I returned for a follow-up visit three
and a half months later, I was unprepared for what I encountered. Â Some
notes, the ones that had been sharp, had crept back up in pitch, many
nearly 100% (!!) of the way back up to where they had been for those eight
long years.    
       I've done many alternate tunings, almost always lowering pitch and
never raising individual notes more than 10 cents or so. Â But after a
pitch-raise and a tuning or two, things have always returned to normal in20a
rather predictable way. Â I have never tuned notes 50 cents sharp nor have
I ever left an alternative tuning on a piano for more than a few weeks at a
shot. Â (Last week we tuned a concert grand to select instruments from one
of our Balinese gamelans, but the piano spent less than a week from the
first "Balinese" tuning to the retuning to ET @440.)Â     
      Has anyone else out there had any experience with notes and/or entire
pianos being tuned sharp for prolonged periods of time? Â If so, did you
observe the same kind of behavior upon retuning? Â What would be the most
efficient way to get it back to "normal"?    
      & Happy Holidays,    
      Alan Eder
egards,
on Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.P.T.
on calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat
mailto:pianotuna at yahoo.com  http://us.geocities.com/drpt1948/
3004 Grant Rd. REGINA, SK, S4S 5G7
06-539-0716 

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