Alan, Sounds like a deal I did in Dodger Stadium a few years back. Morning prep was 60 degrees, very humid. Final tuning was in 80 degrees, direct sun. Fun part was I helped with the sound check, so I got to play the national anthem in Dodger stadium. No one yelled "Play Ball" at the end, though. I think of soundboard changes as being very slow, and in this kind of situation I don't worry about overall soundboard movement. I think it's all about temperature change and string pitch drift. Strings will change - what can you do? Tune the piano in the morning if it is in bad shape, but don't bother to adjust the general pitch level unless it is below pitch when cold. If it's flat and the temperature is cold, go ahead with a quick pitch raise to 442 or so. Settle the strings over the bridge with hard blows, bed the keyframe, check the action. Give it a lot of treble stretch. In the final tuning, mute it up and go through the normal tuning process, but don't get sucked into changing it a lot - just smooth out the bad octaves in the tenor and into the bass, make sure the treble is not nasty out. Then make the unisons as nice as you can. And by all means, don't be critical of yourself if you hear anything wrong! There lies an important key to personal happiness: acknowledging our inability to make a tuning perfect under imperfect circumstances. Have fun! Don Mannino From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of reggaepass at aol.com Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 10:02 AM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: [CAUT] when to tune... This Saturday a piano in my care will be used in an outdoor performance. I have been allotted time from 7-9 AM to service it, and again at 1 PM prior to the 2 PM down beat. I will also be able to spend time with it Friday afternoon, INdoors. Friday night, everything goes "outside." The piano will be covered (floor-length skirt), but, aside from that, will spend the night exposed to the elements. My question is this: Do y'all think it would be productive or counterproductive to tune the piano from 7-9 AM, or am I better off letting it warm up (and dry out!) during the morning hours, then do what I can in the time just before the performance (assuming, of course, that I do not get bumped from that slot!). Thoughts? Thanks, Alan Eder -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20101007/f76703b0/attachment.htm>
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