Concert tuning stability fuse

[Joseph Vitti]

               State University of New York at Stony Brook
                       Stony Brook, NY

                                            Joseph Vitti
                                            Piano Technician
                                            Music
                                            516 632-7330
                                            07-Feb-1996 09:26am EST
FROM:  JVITTI
TO:    Remote Addressee                     ( _pianotech@byu.edu )

Subject: Concert tuning stability fuse


I have read with interest the posts about tuning stability and would like to
add my two cents. Before coming to StonyBrook I was a Concert tech for Baldwins
national artist dept. in NYC. I was formally trained in the "speciality". For
those years I did nothing else. Baldwins C&A departments motto was the piano
had to come off stage after a concert the way it went on. While I am sure there
are other ways of stablizing a concert instrument,both Steinway & Baldwin
concert techs in those days tuned very hard indeed. The idea is not to "hammer
the strings down to pitch" without the need for good hammer technic, but to hit
the piano harder than any concert pianist can and will. One "test" blow however
hard will not tell if the note will stay in tune. Certainly not when the
pianist is playing extremely hard repeatedly. I for one don't want to sit in
the audience squirming in my seat wondering if the tuning will last.

It's the hard tuning with precise hammer technic that will keep a concert piano
in good tune on stage. It has worked for me for twenty years: never killed a
piano although I would have liked to, never any trouble with tendonitis.