fun at the piano store!

[Charly Tuner]

ROn,

Thanks for the insight. As a matter of standard routine, I ALWAYS "pound" 
each & every note to make darn sure the string not only renders, but that it 
holds there when struck with some good force. I always go back and play each 
key once the fine tuning is finished, just to make sure all the unisons are 
perfect. When I finally leave the piano, it has been tested and retested for 
stability. As far as that Yamaha, I'm going to run a few checks on it when I 
get back to the store. I have a feeling, however, that because of the nature 
of new pianos, streching strings, NO CLIMATE/HUMIDITY control, and so on and 
so on, most of the new pianos in the store will need several tunings before 
they will become stable, not just one after it's unpacked. But of course the 
store mangager expects it to stay in good tune after the first tuning, and 
will not likely want to pay us to tune it several times in the first few 
weeks or even months. THey have no clue!

Terry

>From: Ron Nossaman <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com>
>Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: Re: fun at the piano store!
>Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 11:02:35 -0600
>
> >It was flat in the treble, and uinsons out up and down the keyboard. Two
> >days after the last tech tuned it, I played chromatically and the vast
> >majority of bi, tri unisons were very "wavy".
> >
> >Terry.
>
>
>Terry,
>A few years back, I got a call from a customer of mine about another tech.
>She was prospecting for the best tuning she could get on her old Yamaha
>grand (don't remember the model), and thought she'd give someone else a try
>to see if I was as good as she could do. She went for the University tech,
>and had him come out and tune it. A week later, she called me.
>
>I knew the tech, an RPT that qualified at CTE levels, so I called him to
>find out what happened. He had no idea, and had just done what he thought
>was his usual good job. I asked him if he had pounded everything in good
>and he said "No, it wasn't far off pitch". That was the problem.
>
>Yamahas, for some reason I haven't been able to identify, often have a
>specific tuning requirement. When you are setting a string at pitch,
>especially pulling it up, you need to whack it a good one one time to make
>sure it stays there. They'll often drop over 10 cents (mid tenor - high
>treble) when you do this. It seems to be  on a piano to piano basis, rather
>than a unison to unison, so if you find it happens anywhere in the piano,
>do it through the whole tuning.
>
>This happens in all sorts of pianos, but I find it most often in Yamahas.
>The only explanation I've come up with that even remotely makes sense to me
>is that you are helping the string render through the bridge with that hard
>blow. If there is a lot of friction at the bridge pins, it won't happen, so
>it doesn't make much difference a lot of the time, but it will save you a
>lot of grief in those pianos where it does happen. On the pianos that will
>exhibit this pitch drop on one whack (technical term), but don't get
>whacked, the string will render through the bridge anyway. It just takes a
>couple of days and happens to different strings at different rates, making
>the unisons nasty very quickly. This has absolutely nothing to do with
>hammer technique, since the string pitch responds quite normally to pin
>movements. That tech I mentioned at the beginning was/is a good tuner, and
>the piano almost certainly sounded fine when he left it, or he would have
>fixed it before leaving.
>
>I have not had problems keeping new pianos in tune, other than the usual
>general stretching, compacting, and settling stuff, since I discovered this
>about the second year I was in business. It helps on a lot of somewhat less
>than new pianos too.
>
>I think that a lot of tuning stability problems caused by this are blamed
>on other things like loose plate screws and pinblock flange fit. I've
>followed way too many other techs on "problem" pianos and left a
>dramatically more stable tuning than the last XX guys did by just
>addressing this one little thing. This is without tightening the plate
>lags, wedging the flange fit, flibbiting the jib-jab, or generating any
>smoke. I know I'm in the minority here, but this says something to me.
>
>For what it's worth,
>
>Ron N

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