"Wild Strings"

[Farrell]

"I don't know if my hearing and/or listening skills are improving ..."

I'll bet they are!

"...but just how much time can you spend trying to resolve these beats and still make the next appointment and be profitable?"

Not much.

"...I had no choice but to pull the action and try to resolve this."

Oh, yes you did have a choice!!!!!

"Anyway, finally had to tune the damn thing and move on but I wasn't happy."

BINGO!

I think your first and last comments are key - your aural skills are improving, you can now hear all the crap that many (most) pianos spit out at you, and unless you're going to redesign and rebuild that piano, there may not be much you can do but grin and bear it.

I'll admit that if it were a newer piano like you describe, I might spent a few extra minutes to be sure it was the piano and not me - but I run into them like that also. I tune about 15 newish Yamaha C3s every two weeks and fine that the high treble on almost all of them are nearly untunable - "just get the trash-can bashing sound of each unison to about the right pitch."

Sad but true.

In most situations like this I just do what I can, collect my check and move on. If the piano owner appears to be able to play the piano and seems to know something about piano tone/sound/etc., I may take a few minutes to point out the lack of string clarity to him/her. My main reason for doing so is purely a pre-emptive defense strategy - I want them to know it's the piano's fault, not mine!

Fortunately, there are a few pianos out there that are designed and constructed in such a manner as to produce very clear sound. I just love that.

Terry Farrell



----- Original Message -----  
> I have been meaning to write about this for some time and a piano today 
> finally put me over the edge. I don't know if my hearing and/or 
> listening skills are improving or if I am having a real bad run of 
> pianos with "wild strings", or "false beats" if you prefer that term. I 
> hate leaving pianos in that condition but just how much time can you 
> spend trying to resolve these beats and still make the next appointment 
> and be profitable?
> 
> Today's issue was a couple year old Schirmer & Sons upright, very nice 
> looking piano, decent Detoa action, agraffes bottom to top, decent tone, 
> GREAT feel to the block, but, EVERY single string had it's own beats. I 
> had no choice but to pull the action and try to resolve this. Seated all 
> strings, but the majority seemed to be well seated, no loose bridge 
> pins, nothing obvious. Pushing on bridge pins with a screwdriver had no 
> effect. Massaged the worst offenders but really, nothing worked well. At 
> this point I'm assuming poor bridge notching ( I can't see as well as I 
> used to). Anyway, finally had to tune the damn thing and move on but I 
> wasn't happy. This one is probably a good candidate for Pitchlok.
> 
> Do you folks tend to tune these "wild" pianos as best you can and move 
> forward or do you spend some time?
> 
> Thanks! Happy Thanksgiving!
> 
> Mike McCoy
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20061123/3f3f0fcb/attachment.html