Pitch Raise, was: Standard Pitch

[cswearingen@daigger.com]

Hi Ed,

Ok, tell me if I'm wrong here but, as I understand it, whichever direction
you move the pitch, it tends to want to spring back by about a third.  So,
in general, you move the pitch 3 cents in one direction, it will settle
about 1 cent back in the other direction.  This is the whole basis of
overshooting the pitch during pitch raising.

Now, if you are fine tuning and you pull the pitch up to 6 cents and then
move it down to the target pitch, it will end up creeping back up by a
couple of cents.  In other words, in my opinion, you're not fine tuning if
you're moving pitches around by 5 or 6 cents as you describe below.  When I
fine tune, after a pitch raise, I'm usually not moving the pitches around
more than 1 or 2 cents.  Of course, this implies that the initial pitch
raise leaves the piano 1 to 2 cents away from the targets.  Based on Dr.
Sandersons recommendations on pitch raising, which I follow, I find that by
spending an extra few minutes being more accurate in the initial pitch
raise allows one to fine tune without having to move the pitches around by
more than 1-2 cents and makes for better stability.

Obviously you are a well regarded technician and I don't doubt your ability
to produce a great tuning using the method you describe.  In my case, I
don't think I could produce an accurate and stable tuning if I were moving
some of the notes by 5-6 cents.

Corte Swearingen
Chicago


                                                                                                         
                      A440A@aol.com                                                                      
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                      @ptg.org                 Subject:  Re: Pitch Raise, was: Standard Pitch            
                                                                                                         
                                                                                                         
                      10/10/2003 11:02                                                                   
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Corte asks:
<< Let's forget about pitch raising for a bit.  I'd like to hear from
tuners
who claim they can fine tune a piano is less than an hour.  What exactly
are you doing to shave off the time (assuming quality work is being done)?
Are you using some sort of efficient muting pattern?  I admit I probably
spend too much time moving mutes around. >>

Greetings,
   A fine tuning in 1 hour is simple if the piano is already at pitch.  I
use
one mute, a SAT, and a hammer.  The majority of time in a tuning is spent
making decisions. That is where you will save the most time.  I don't even
listen
to the note as I pull it sharp.  I then make all tuning movements downward
to
the desired pitch. This way, I don't practice but one movement.  Doing ALL
the tuning by pushing the lever down gets one pretty consistant in a hurry.
If
it is a little bit flat, I don't work around it,  I simply yank it sharp by
5
or 6 cents and try again.  It is faster that way and you avoid problems
with
jumpy pins.
Regards
Ed Foote RPT
(and it only takes 15 minutes with the SAT to bring a piano to pitch.)
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