Pitch Raise

[pianotune05@comcast.net]

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HI Ron,
I worked on a practice tuning on Wednesday at a local thrift store.  I mentioned tha tbaby  grand. It was sooooo flat, that after I did my best to get the temerment in, the rest of the piano sounded like I had two piano in one case.  It was wild.  A customer of the thrift store came in and started to talk to me, and I demonstrated the importance that a piano needs to be tuned etc.  They too were amazed at the difference. I had c# 3 and c#4 octave in line, and the other c# sounded like entirely different notes not even related to them.  I went back yesterday to do some tuning on an vertical, and I played a few notes on the grand , and the pitch raise held some.  I 'm going back on MOnday to work on th egrand again.
Marshall

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman@cox.net> 

> 
> 
> > I am a novice tuner learning to tune aurally. I am confused as to how to 
> > do an effective aural pitch raise. 
> 
> It'll probably take you longer to learn to do an effective aural 
> pitch raise dependably than to learn to tune acceptably. 
> 
> 
> > How can you accurately judge whether a piano needs a pitch raise 
> > (without an electronic guage)? 
> 
> I don't think you can, accurately, with any method. So much depends 
> on the situation, and every tuner has a different threshold. Just 
> figuring out where the piano is in pitch is guesswork. If you live 
> in a part of the world that has seasons, you'll find often tuned 
> pianos that are very close in the A-4 area, five beats flat or sharp 
> in the low tenor, and the same in octave 6. The bass will be pretty 
> close, and the high treble could be anywhere. Most of your clientele 
> won't be too interested in paying for pitch corrections twice a 
> year, so you do the best you can in one pass. 
> 
> At A-4, each beat per second is four cents. I tune school systems 
> where the pianos are off 4+ beats (16+ cents) sharp or flat at A-4. 
> They get one pass. While this won't produce concert level tuning, 
> it's surprising how nice sounding a tuning you can produce like this 
> with practice, which is good, because that's all they will get under 
> these circumstances. 
> 
> In other venues, a 4 cent or smaller change will require a pitch 
> adjustment pass. 
> 
> Bottom line is, there isn't a rule. Your judgment is made on the 
> likelihood of your meeting the requirements of the tuning in this 
> instance, on this piano, in one pass. 
> 
> 
> > Once you determine a pitch raise is necessary, is there a particular 
> > sequence to use when pitch raising? I am aware of the general guideline 
> > of overshooting a string by half the amount that it is flat. Do you do 
> > this on every note, or is there a certain graduation as you go to the 
> > bass and the treble? 
> 
> I start with the overshoot at the fork, and set a decent, but not 
> overly fussy temperament. I then chase the overshoot beat rate by 
> octaves up to the treble break, and down to the low tenor. The 
> overshoot in the bass will be less, or none. Overshoot through 
> octave 6 will be more than in the center, tapering to none at the top. 
> 
> Again, everyone slays their pitch correction dragon in their own 
> fashion. You'll just have to keep paying attention and adjusting 
> your approach until you find a set of processes that work for you. 
> 
> Ron N 
> _______________________________________________ 
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