Muting high treble

[Ron Nossaman]

> Do any of you strip-muters find that adding that little 
>bit of extra tension to two-thirds of the strings on the piano affects pitch 
>in a like manner?
>
>Terry Farrell


Not that I could tell. The furnace or A/C cycling noticeably does, but
that's usually not that much of a problem either. Or it's unavoidable, and
I work around it. They get tuned under the conditions we're given, so we do
what we can. 

I did have an interesting episode with a new "Everett" grand a few weeks
ago, that almost resembles the subject line. I had been asked by the piano
sales manager to tune it and tell her what I thought. It had apparently
been tuned the week before by their floor stock tuner, and was sounding
pretty rough already. As I was stripping up the high tenor and treble, I
was hearing faint "ting" noises each time I poked the strip in. The strings
were either settling onto, or rendering across the bridge as I touched
them. My hygrometer had settled down by then, and read 18% RH, down from
the 45% I had been recording everywhere I went three or four days ago.
That's what happened to the tuning, and why the strings were settling when
I touched them. The soundboard had plenty of crown everywhere, but I
couldn't detect positive bearing anywhere in the piano with a rocker gage
(so the bearing could have well been negative in some/most/all places??).
Even in the extreme treble. Whatever was on the bridge cap was very black
and very shiny. I have no idea what it is (t'aint graphite), but I doubt it
had anything to do with anything. 

Ron N