What you are is what you hear

[Barrie Heaton]

Dear André,

That's an nice article you wrote.  When I was training we weren't
allowed to use a tuning leaver, for the first year of tuning  we  used a
T hammer.  This had two purposes one to develop the vice grip and
control that tuners need to acquire.  Also to to learn the feel of how
the pin turns in the plank.

I was also taught by one of my teachers that you should not strike the
key too hard when tuning it should be just hard enough to displace any
drag between the tuning pin and the Agraft.

At present I have to tune a hundred and eight year old Bechstein grand
for regular concerts.  This piano has loose pins and I have to prepare
it for pianists like Martin Rosko who likes to knock seven bells out of
his pianos.  I manage to make this piano stay reasonably well in tune
through the concert, However, a year or so ago, I was unable to tune the
piano for a particular concert and they engaged a colleague of mine who
I know well, he is a good tuner but is a keyboard thrasher.  Very often
breaking shanks.

He could not make the piano stay in tune for  the concert it was a bit
of a disaster.   We realised after talking  later on,  that he was just
knocking his tuning out again,  instead of gently turning and coaxing
the pin in to place.  He was having to re-tune the strings more because
he would knock the unison out due to his heavy handed approach to
the piano,   of course he complained and said that the tuning pins were
too loose, they are loose if you compare them with a newer piano or what
you would normally find on a concert platform.

 Your post tends to reinforce what I have always beleved setting the pin
is more important than how hard you hit the key.

Kind regards,

Barrie.


In article <199702030021.BAA06363@mail.euronet.nl>, "Oorebeek A."
<oorebeek@euronet.nl> writes
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>I just came home from friends where I had spent a pleasant evening. My wife, who
>is in Belgium for a couple of days, needed the car, so I had to take the bus to
>my friends who live outside Amsterdam.
>On my way back home in the bus, I was thinking about "the perfect tuning"
>discussion we had this afternoon (GMT), and the thought suddenly came to my mind
>that there was something in relation to this subject, that I had not mentioned
>to you yet.
>I therefore made myself a nice cup of tea and write my last lines of the day
>now.
>
>What I wanted to describe to you is a precious moment I had during my last
>ordeal in Hamamatsu.
>In other emails to the list I have told about the daily tuning test where, after
>each tuning, the instructor enters "the box" to make the tuning graph together
>with the student. The instructor measures electronically, calls out the plusses
>and the minusses, and the student makes a chart of his own tuning result.
>After having finished one such a tuning test, my teacher made a gentle
>compliment about the outcome. He then mentioned, that I should not strike the
>keys so hard in the process of tuning. In other words; don't bang too much!
>I answered that I pounded the keys, out of fear that a pianist would otherwise
>kick my foundation to ruins in only 5 minutes!
>
>The teacher then asked me to first listen to a couple of tones and imprint the
>sound in my ears.
>Next, he ordered me to re-tune the left and right strings of each unison (of
>said keys) but this time >not< to strike too hard.
>I did as he said, and to my utter amazement these same notes sounded
>>completely< different, they were richer, warmer and more saturated.
>We both became enthusiastic and he asked me to give all other unisons the same
>treatment, which I gladly did. After I had finished this task, there was a
>completely different and truly beautiful concert grand.....
>
>The explaination for this is that when we strike hard, we hear a different
>series of overtones more prominently than when we strike less hard.
>
>The next day I applied this new procedure on a fresh tuning test and I was full
>of inspiration.
>I flew over the strings like a jet, I gave all I had... and the chart proved
>this ; a beautiful straight line with hardly any major errors.
>A high (daily) score on the door of my box and that day (only) the other
>(japanese) students walked by my door like blazing cats! PAH!
>
>This time, the teacher made a remark about "my tone" being very nice. I did not
>understand him right away because, and this I told him, "the instrument has a
>nice tone...not me...how can this be"? (but I was secretly mollified of
>course...)
>He asked me to follow him and we went out of the "box" to get the other
>students, and we assembled around one of the other concert grands.
>Here he asked each of us to tune three tones, two fifths together..like a-e-b,
>a#-f-c, etc. resulting in five sets of double fifths.
>Again, the outcome was significant...because each set had a distinct different
>nature!
>
>The teacher even had us each tune the same tone over and over, and with each
>student the tone had a different color!
>
>The explaination comes to this;
>As each of us has a different fingerprint, so does each individual have a
>different "hearingprint" resulting in a different tone.
>
>All these phenomena are related to how we "listen to" and "judge" our "own"
>piano sounds and those of numerous others...
>And that makes it even more complicated to come to a "perfect" result.
>
>
>
>
>Friendly Greetings from:
>
>CONCERT PIANO SERVICE
>André Oorebeek
>Amsterdam, the Netherlands
>email address: oorebeek@euronet.nl
>
>‰ Where Music is no harm can be ‰
>
>





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Barrie Heaton                                  |  Be Environmentally Friendly
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