A treble in trouble

[Delwin D Fandrich]

Michael Jorgensen wrote:

> Hello, It seems to me that your "piano banger" playing the piano alot
> right after stringing and chipping, would help to settle the strings
> early on before the piano ever reaches pianists and other tuners where
> its' reputation will develope.  From my experience, I think there is
> more to  string setttling than just time.---Mike Jorgensen RPT.

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You're right, of course, when you speak of strings "settling." But two things are going on here. One is that the strings are
bending and settling into position. Much of this can be aided by good stringing and detailing practices. Tightening up the
bends, seating the strings against the bridge pins, leveling them, etc. And to a certain extent strings can be
"pre-stretched" a bit by rolling them or pressing them--temporarily stretching them well above their normal pitch--as is the
practice of some factories and rebuilders. These practices can all help to improve initial tuning stability. Especially, they
will help to keep unisons and/or individual strings in tune better, etc., so that as pitch drops it will do so more or less
uniformly and the piano will not sound obnoxiously out of tune with itself along the way. However, in the end strings are
going to stretch under tension at an exponential rate. And it  takes time under tension for the stretch rate to decrease
enough so that the piano will hold its pitch reasonably well for more than a couple of months.

Good thing, too. Else there wouldn't be much for all you piano tuners to do all day but hang out and get into mischief.

Although it probably does help settle in the strings somewhat, we use the playing-in machine after first regulation and again
after second regulation to "break-in" the action more than for any affect it may have on tuning stability. It's nice to be
able to deliver a piano with all new action parts and a hammer line that won't drop in the first three months. So now all the
action regulators are out there getting into mischief instead.

--ddf