concert tuning

[Tom Servinsky]

Tom
Congratulations on getting through your first concert setting tuning. It's
much different when you're the one in the hot seat having taking the heat,
and making all the decisions.  The perils which exist in concert tuning
frustrate even the seasoned concert technician.
Surviving concert tuning is a matter of being able to handle anything and
everything that's going to be thrown at you ( i.e., gross humidity changes,
temperature changes, circular saws running, and even the stage hands
bragging at the top of their voice about their  previous night's escapades,
all  well you are supposed to be totally focused on getting your job
completed.  And in many times, in a very short amount of time.  The trick is
to not let this stuff bother you and still be able to sleep well at the end
of the day.
Enjoy the experience. Be proud that know you did your best with what you had
to work with.
Tom Servinsky,RPT
----- Original Message -----
From: <Tvak@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 9:48 AM
Subject: concert tuning


> I did my first concert tuning yesterday.  The event was a concert
celebrating
> the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chicago local of the American
> Federation of Musicians.  So not only were the people on stage musicians,
but
> so was the entire audience!  (...just a LITTLE bit intimidating...)
>     At least they gave me enough time to do my best.  I had 1 1/2 hours in
> the AM prior to rehearsal to tune the 6' Yamaha, and 1 1/2 hours after the
> rehearsal.  Midway through the AM tuning they opened the large garage-type
> door behind the stage to load in the tympani, music stands, etc., and the
> piano immediately went 5 cents sharp.  Using Cybertuner allowed me to keep
an
> unchanging reference, and so I continued on, and when the door shut, the
> piano went right back to A440.  (Whew!)
>     Although time was not a limitation, unfortunately, the piano was.
This
> house piano had false beats throughout the 7th octave, and some annoying
slow
> ones in the 5th and 6th octaves.  I had trouble tuning the unisons in this
> area, so I viewed some of these individual strings in Cybertuner and found
> that some would go flat after the attack, others would go sharp.  I
actually
> had to tune some of these unisons visually to get them to sound as best as
> they could. (I've never done this before---it worked really well!)  The
> attacks would be ugly, but the notes when sustaining would sound fine.
>     All in all, it was disappointing to represent my work to the best
> musicians in Chicago on this piano.  After the AM tuning, I went and tuned
a
> Petrof 50" vertical at a client's house---oh, if only that piano was on
stage
> at the concert.  It sounded absolutely beautiful.  My piano teacher used
to
> say, "It's a poor carpenter who blames his tools."  Well, I did the best I
> could.
>     Among the artists playing the concert were Johnny Frigo, Dennis
DeYoung,
> Larry Combs, and Rachel Barton.  In the audience, God only knows.  (I hope
> that doesn't bring a spate of posts about religion.)
>     I usually only post questions, so I thought I'd post something without
> asking for anything in return!
>
>     Thanks for reading,
>     Tom Sivak
>     Chicago Chapter PTG Associate