Tuning top octaves

[Alan Barnard]

If the hammer makes a good string ping, use it. If you get only a tiny, confusing "pink" or a useless "thunk" then, oh, pluck it. 

Someone mentioned playing arpeggios as a final test, that's good, too. Play a big chord slowly upward, pause before you play the note you are tuning, hear it "in your head" (some old-timers on the West Coast still use their bladders), then sound the note and see if it is where you "imagined" it to be.

The plucked tone, I believe, is actually the true pitch of the string, i.e., the pitch it would "settle down to" after the hammer shock IF it had any sustain, which it does not. So, yes, Joe is right. If you pluck, you might have to tweak it up and test it with the other methods discussed so that the hammer-played note is at pitch ... or get out your ETD.

Some other West-Coasters (Peter Clark, et al -- not sure who Al is) pluck the lower, tune-to note of the octave while holding the edge of a mute or something similar on the string, exactly in the middle, to produce it's second partial. Then pluck and tune the top note of the octave and match the pitch (Pitch! Not beats? Heresy, I'm sure). I don't know exactly how accurate this method is, with the proviso Joe mentions here, but when you really can't find your way, it's one more trick in hat. 

This can  also be used on low bass notes (easy with a grand) when things are all screwed up, e.g., major pitch raise, and the strings are thuddy: Just put a finger, lightly, at the center of the lower note string (experiment to find the center), play the note and compare it to the octave-up note that you are (hopefully) more sure of.

If all else fails, relax and chill with a little medication ... maybe a dose of the tuner's wonder drug: Damittol*
 
Alan Barnard
Salem, Missouri

*That's jest a joke, folk.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Joseph Garrett 
To: pianotech
Sent: 05/04/2006 8:43:44 PM 
Subject: Re: Tuning top octaves


Alan said: "Many times, plucking the string with a fingernail makes it easier to hear 
than striking it with the hammer."

Be aware, however, that plucking will produce a different AND  lower pitch than with being  struck by  a  hammer. (If'n ya don't believe that.....do it and measure it with an ETD.)


Joe Garrett, R.P.T. (Oregon)
Captain, Tool Police
Squares R I
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