Tough jobs and Hearing

[Henry Brugsch]

A lot has been said of what the customer can't hear here. But, what of
the customer who can hear what either you can't, or find difficult.
2 different situations.
One positive, the other negative.

In 1977, when I had only been tuning a few years, I was working in
Scotland near Glasgow.
One of my customers had a small piano, what would be classed in the
States as a console.
I tuned it, and went home.

2 days later the customer complained about a note "being out of tune."
I went back to have a look, the unison was fine, the octave checked out
test wise.
In short, that particular note was fine.
Indeed, I found a few unisons that had slipped, I set them right.
Asked the customer what he thought.
"Well still dose ne sound right."
Then, I de-tuned another note, and asked what he thought of that.
"Sounds fine to me."

So, I told him I could do no more than what I had already done.
That the note was fine, and to my ears, everything sounded fine.
The customer was after this, not interested in further discussion.

The next experience was later on, some years later in the states.

A young girl's parents called me in to tune up her new Kimball. It was
one of the higher priced Kimballs with the Schwander action.
After I was done, the girl played the piano, and said she thought it
sounded good, accept for the bass.
I asked her what she was hearing that she didn't like.
She told me, a sort of high-pitched "twang".
 So, what could this be?
I tried to talk to her, get a sense of what she was hearing. I changed
the unison, to see what affect that had.
I realized after some time, what she was hearing was a high frequency
component which seems to be the characteristic of a number of pianos. In
this particular one, it was particularly strident.
It showed up as a sharp "ringing" at about 8khz or so.
Of course the tone was related to its fundamental.
I took a particularly bad example, I.e. one of the more strident
examples of this sound, and pricked the hammer.
This reduced the affect, and I showed the girl what I was doing. I also
let her hear the difference between the one I had treated, and the rest.
She confirmed that the affect was what she had wanted.
Followed through with voicing of the rest of the bass sections beginning
at the bass break, and carrying on through the other bichords.
She was pleased with the result.

I think these cases are illustrative of what happens with hearing, and
perception.
The first situation was with a middle-aged man, the second a young girl
of 11.
There are so many variables between pianos, people, and hearing
abilities. We have to sort of roll with the punches.
We have to pit our skills against some very superb hearing, and against
some very poor hearing.
But, the net results are similar, and the expenditure of energies can be
just as great for both.

Right now, I am in the middle of dealing with a customer with an
Evestaff full-sized piano.
It's only about fifteen years old.

After completion, she was concerned about a buzzing.
I heard it too, and then started the usual game.
Tighten up all screws hinges, and everything else.
This reduced the buzz, but still hasn't completely removed it.
In general, these buzzes can be attributable to something within the
piano, other times to a dish hanging on a wall, a set of snare drums, a
lamp with a loose shade.
The list is endless.
So, the process begins.
And, in this case, the search for an answer goes on, till I can find it.

I may have a partial answer to my first example.
Someone pointed out to me the affect of individual internal head
resonances.
Apparently, in some cases people's heads can resonate to particular
frequencies.
Maybe most of us manage to tune out these resonances.
I have never noticed the affect.
But, for one who can "hear" the resonance, it must be an appalling
situation if their ear is sensitive, and their hearing perception
"tuned"

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   Henry Brugsch