John M. Formsma wrote: > > 2) When tuning, use a soft touch while listening. I have noticed that if > the ear is developed in this way it learns to hear things better so that it > is totally unnecessary to pound, pound, pound away on the notes. (In my > opinion, pounding does not contribute as much to the tuning stability as > does good hammer lever technique. Therefore, why play hard when it is not > necessary?) Uh, John, you might be raising some hackles here. I hope you have your flame suit handy. Conventional wisdom has it that a string is not properly set unless you use loud test blows. This is not to say that what you are doing is wrong. It's just that the majority of us in the profession rely on at least a firm test blow as positive assurance that the tuning is going to stay. I'm glad to say that I'm not of that school of thought. I was mentored by a musician/tuner who abhorred any sort of pounding on the keys because it was unmusical and damaging to self and piano. He also held that loud test blows were not as effective for long-term stability as skillful pin manipulation. Therefore, I learned from the beginning how to become sensitive to the feel of the pin in the block as well as being able to sense the difference of string tensions between the speaking length segment and the tuning pin segment. After tuning lots of pianos, ones that were played heavily, some not at all, and returning every year to retune, I began to get feedback as to what worked in different situations and learned to modify my technique to fit different pianos and playing styles. A most valuable learning experience has been tuning a jazz club piano, on average, once a week for the last 20 years. While I think that tuning with a light touch is the ideal approach, it does take a while to develop that feel for consistent pin/string setting and at least occasional test blows should be used to check for stability, especially on an unfamiliar piano. But in answer to your question, what we are discussing is more a matter of style than what is "correct" and is largely influenced by how we learned to tune originally. It's interesting that you abandoned your pounding technique in favor of a completely different approach. Did you discover this on your own or learn it from a colleague? Tom -- Thomas A. Cole, RPT Santa Cruz, CA mailto:tcole@cruzio.com
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