May Their Practice rooms be filled with 1098's

[David Ilvedson, RPT]

Ron,

My hammer technique is sort of a dynamic impact style and I consider it to
excellent.  I use manipulation of the tuning pin and key in tandem.  With
every other piano I have no problems but with Steinway verticals in general
I have absolutely no idea where the pitch is going, NONE.  Pounding (which
I'm not a big fan of)does nothing, which leads me to believe with that huge
pressure bar the tension between the pin and the bar is not in sync with the
speaking length, i.e. tension higher from t-pin to bar.  Tension seeps into
speaking length and up goes the pitch.

David I.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Nossaman <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com>
To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 8:50 PM
Subject: Re: May Their Practice rooms be filled with 1098's


>>"David Ilvedson, RPT" wrote:
>>
>>> What I really love about Steinway verticals is bringing it up just to
pitch
>>> and coming back for the second pass and it is now 10% above pitch?  How
does
>>> it do that?
>>
>>I don't know.  But I do remember a comment from the last time we went
>around on
>>this subject.  Someone said you might need to lower your expectations a
little
>>when you tune these.  I don't like the concept, but if it keeps you from
going
>>crazy I guess it's the better option.
>>
>>Regards, Clyde
>
>
>What do you mean GOING crazy? It's pretty simple, physically (not going
>crazy, the pitch raise thing). If there is more back torque left in the
>pin, and/or the pin is sprung (flagpoling) down more than the string
>tension will counterbalance, the pitch will creep up as the forces equalize
>via the string rendering through the friction points after you move on. In
>pianos where the counter bearing angle is enough that the friction at the
>bearing points is enough to maintain some difference in string tensions in
>the sections on either side of the V bar (or agraffe)/counter bearing, then
>you have more margin for error. Other pianos aren't exactly easier to tune,
>they just allow us more slop in our technique(s). The problem lies in the
>fact that we can't exactly tell what the tension levels of the individual
>string segments are in any given instance except by the reaction of the
>pitch of the speaking length during pin manipulation, and the relatively
>short term pitch stability of the same segment between the time we tune it,
>and the final quality control check. We tend to gear our techniques and
>expectations to a median level of friction at the key points, and any
>actual friction levels significantly above or below the average takes us
>from behind because we aren't normally aware of the details of what we're
>doing when we make these statistically average judgements during the course
>of tuning. We can only wait around so long to see how what we did finally
>turns out, so we have to play the odds according to what we feel and hear,
>compared to our mental visualization of what's actually happening to any
>individual string while we tune it. The closer our mental model is to
>what's actually occurring, the more solid our tuning will be.
>
>Ain't science grand?
>
>
>
>
>Ron N
>