Unison Flatter than each Individual string?

[Bill Ballard]

At 12:07 AM -0500 8/20/02, Richard Moody wrote:
>>  As far as Ric's comment on why wasn't this talked about 100 yrs.
>ago, well
>>  according to Bill Garlick it was. Which is why places like the
>Bosendorfer
>>  factory taught the tuners to only with a single rubber mute. It
>yielded
>>  better results.
>>  Tom Servinsky, RPT
>
>Sorry I should have said "published".   However first hand info
>about how they tune in factories is a pet research project, so if
>more information about that is available I am all
>       ---ric

It's not unusual for a tuner to instinctively develop a way of 
correcting if not anticipating this motion, and not be consciously 
aware of it. I tune the top half of the piano with a single mute.  My 
octave tuning didn't clean up until I learned pitch shimming, and 
this technique was an absolute requirement for single mute tuning.

I can sit on a bench between two keyboards  and given clean unisons 
on a given note, play both notes, listen for the motion, and correct 
it by transferring one measurement. But it never occurred to me that 
the divergence I was reading between the just tuned three string 
unison and its test note, was the by-product of coupling three 
strings into a unison. I always assumed that it was the response to 
changes in pressure on a flexible board, matter how tiny those 
changes.

At 10:21 PM -0400 8/21/02, Tom Servinsky wrote:
>When you realize that you cannot go further on in the tuning until 
>the unison is
>absolutely clean you pay more attention to those pesky details.

It gets better. You are forced to squeeze the last drop of motion out 
of your unisons, because any trace of motion left in the unisons will 
immediately cloud the intervals. If you can't hear the intervals, 
what are you going to do? In short you get very good at unisons.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"There's a difference between 'involved' and 'committed.' When 
providing ham and eggs for breakfast, the hen is involved. The pig is 
committed."
     ...........(Milo Sturgis in Jonathan Kellerman's novel "Self-Defense")
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