eee-ahhh

[Barbara Richmond]

Joey,

Another way to look at it would be to make sure the hammer is making a
square strike on the strings (mating the hammer to the strings)  Here's how
to do it, if you don't know how:

Engage the damper pedal, hold the hammer lightly against the strings, pluck
each string to hear if any are ringing.  If so, lightly shape, sanding at
the strike point where the string *doesn't* ring (or strings).   It's easy
to see where to sand, just look at the string cuts--often it's obvious how
the hammer is striking.  Do a little bit at a time and check your progress.
I have a really fine tool for this:  a Popsicle stick with a narrow strip of
sand paper glued to it.  The sandpaper is narrower than the stick making it
easy to sand small spaces.

You didn't say if this was a grand or upright.  I have a homemade hook to
pull the hammer up to the strings when doing this on a grand.

Now that you can hear this, pretty soon you'll learn that a lot of those
false beats (or what you think are false beats when you're trying to get
those unisons nice and smooth) are actually just cases of the hammers not
being mated correctly to the strings.  Good luck!


Barbara Richmond, RPT
hoping my marriage will survive another year of putting the Christmas tree
in the stand  :-)
somewhere near Peoria, IL



>>Kevin E. Ramsey kevin.e.ramsey@cox.net:

>>Joey, did you check the string leveling?  That would be my first guess.

>>Kevin.


>  ----- Original Message ------
>  From: Joey Recker
>  To: pianotech@ptg.org
>  Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 6:18 PM
>  Subject: eee-ahhh


>  Tuned a piano at a church in Plains last week.  I was extremely
>satisfied with the results (they turn the HVAC off all week and it
>hadn't been tuned in a week).  Tonight after church the pianist
>mentioned to me how much better it sounded, but commented that one note
>sounded "funny".  Initially, I didn't hear the problem...  (I think
>because the strings are definitely in tune and I was listening for
>beats).  But after a few moments I detected what she is talking about.
>When you first hit the key, it quickly goes "eee-ahhh".  Every other
>note just says "ahh" (yeah, I know this sounds stupid, but I can't think
>of any other way to describe it).  It happens very quickly and is almost
>undetectable, but SHE noticed it, so it is now important to me.  It's
>like the note has two syllables instead of just one pure syllable.

>  It quickly gets to the ahhh... and there are no further beats in the
>tone when played by itself or when checking octaves so I don't think
>it's what we would normally call a false beat.

>  Sorry if this doesn't explain things properly...  but does anyone have
>any suggestions of things I should check?  I don't know where to start.

>  Thanks
>  Joey