Hello all, I have just begun learning to tune. A few weeks ago I did my first complete tuning on a piano I recently acquired. Actually, so far I've done it over more or less completely twice, because the bass and treble ends didn't sound so good the first time. This was all on a 1921 Bush and Lane upright, and I'd taken the tension completely off the strings to do some bridge stuff when I got it, so the first tuning took a few days. (By the way, I want to say thanks to many on this list who shared their knowledge, because even though I have several books and the first 1/5 of the Randy Potter course, when I got confused about something I could often start to get a grip on it after searching the ptg postings.) Anyway, getting to the point, this gave me some confidence, so last week I decided to tackle my other piano, a 1973 Mason & Hamlin 50" upright. This piano is much harder for me to tune. I am not sure why. Maybe it is partly because it is much brighter than the Bush & Lane. I could have done a neat experiment about that, because the Bush & Lane was MUCH harder and brighter when I first got it, and the M&H seemed mellow by comparison. But unfortunately, I steamed the hammers and did a lot of other voicing-down stuff on the Bush & Lane before I tuned it, so I never got to compare the effect of the brightness on how hard it was to tune the same piano. And now it's the M&H which seems very much brighter. When I say the M&H is much harder to tune, I mean just setting the temperament so far. I haven't got past that yet. The one thing I DO notice for sure when I'm trying to tune the Mason & Hamlin upright, that makes it difficult for me, is that it is really hard to hear JUST the undamped middle strings beating together. Over and over, I was going back and forth with notes I just couldn't seem to align decisively, and which seemed like they were contradicting themselves, only to find out that it was one of the other, presumably damped, strings of the unison that was causing the muddle. (A lot of the time I was just trying to make fifths beatless (at 3:2, I think) and the like, because I was going to tune it aurally to Kirnberger II, and then re-tune it to ET when I learn enough to do so aurally. The B&L I had tuned to Young's 1899, setting the temperament initially with a $35 Seiko electronic tuner, just doing a couple adjustments by ear.) On the Bush & Lane, I'd noticed this interference from the damped outside strings a few times, too, but it only had an effect for the first fraction of a second or so, then presumably the temperament strip killed the interference. But on the Mason & Hamlin, the interference from the outside strings seemed to last a couple seconds or so. Plus, it seems like maybe it actually influences the middle string, and it seems to make the last steps of zero-ing in ambiguous. So on the Mason & Hamlin, I found myself using the rubber wedges, four at a time, to eliminate all this extraneous noise from the outside strings. I was wondering if anyone else finds it difficult to adequately damp the outside strings with a felt temperament strip. Or is my technique wrong, either the way I'm listening or the way I'm using the strip, although I can't see too many ways to drastically improve how I put it in. Is noise from the outside strings normal, and you're supposed to learn to work around it? Or maybe I just have a cheap or incorrect type of temperament strip. I noticed that the one that came in the Randy Potter materials seemed to have a high synthetic content. Maybe it would work better, but something happened to it (involving it's being called to service in another musical instrument), so I've been using a feltier/woolier one that I got in a box of miscellaneous used piano stuff, so I don't know much about it. It doesn't seem to fit too loosely or anything though. Even when I was tuning the Bush & Lane, getting the muted strings to be muted enough to hear more clearly was a recurrent concern as I worked (but not as much so on that piano). Basically, I'm wondering if being bothered by this is just some kind of beginner's thing. Or is there really a problem with how I'm muting the strings that I can readily improve with the right materials or techniques? Or it is neither, and it bothers everyone sometimes, but you just have to do your best with it? I should mention that because I've been doing a lot of temperament changing and pitch-raising type things, the three strings of the unisons are often pretty far off from each other, more than normal, so maybe that has something to do with this. What do you think I should try next? Thanks for any help and best regards, Trent Lesher -----Original Message----- From: David Love [mailto:davidlovepianos@comcast.net] Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 2:10 PM To: 'Phillip Ford'; 'Pianotech' Subject: RE: one rubber mute When I was tuning aurally I found that the temperament strip (literally used for the temperament) was best. Since temperaments vary slightly on different pianos, using a single, or more commonly, a four mute method, which I tried, just ended up with to many redos of notes already tuned. Since I tuned a two octave temperament, at least in part, I found that stripping A2, C#3, F3 - A4, worked the best. That allowed for minor adjustments to the temperament octave without have to retune entire unisons. After those unisons were pulled in, a two mute unisons as you go method worked best for me. But, to each his own. David Love davidlovepianos@comcast.net Let's see. We'll talk about Bush and Kerry on the list, but when you're going to have a discussion of tuning you're going to take it off list? I think you ought to carry on this discussion here. When I read Jason's post I thought the question above echoed my own questions (or skepticism, if you will) about this single mute method. I don't have a lot of trouble seeing that it might work well outside the temperament octave, but I'm skeptical that it would result in a better temperament octave in a reasonable amount of time. I would appreciate more specific details about the process that you follow to set the temperament octave using one mute. Phil Ford _______________________________________________ pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives ****** IMPORTANT NOTICE ****** This e-mail, and any attachments hereto, is intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail, and any attachments hereto, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify me at (312) 207-1000 and permanently delete the original and any copy of any e-mail and any printout thereof.
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