I have tuned part time at the university for the last couple of years and had definitely suspected that some student had a tuning hammer because of really odd tunings - or out of tunings. Couple of weeks ago I was in one of the professor's office tuning a Bosenforfer - there was a very old Brinkermann in the corner of the office and I had a look for curiosity. Under music rack was the hammer that I was looking for - nicely hidden. Not even a good one - the ebay goose neck $20.00 special. Gene ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman at cox.net> To: "Pianotech" <Pianotech at ptg.org>; <Caut at ptg.org> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 2:55 PM Subject: tuning anomaly > > This morning, I tuned a Baldwin K (about a 6'? grand) in a high school. > Rebuilt (good job) about 20 years ago, and I'd last tuned it in March this > year at about 30%RH. It was at 65%RH today, so I expected the usual 20 > cents sharp in the low tenor, with the rest not that far off. Wrong! It > was about 6 beats sharp at A-4, tapering down to about 1 beat at A-0, with > no real discontinuity across the bass/tenor break. Strange. From A-4 it > went up to about 8 beats sharp at the strut, and about 12 beats sharp at > the next strut, tapering back down to about 2 beats sharp at C-8. Again, > the beat rates progressed smoothly, even across the struts. It's like it > had been tuned that sharp intentionally. Now the fun part. Going from > about 8 beats sharp at G-5, G#-5 to C-6 were all close to 3 semitones low, > with C#-6 going right back to the 8 beats sharp plan!! No detectable > gremlins other than the tuning. > > I asked the guy when he came in to frisk everyone and confiscate that > tuning hammer, and he swore up and down that nobody had touched it, and it > had just gone out like that. Right. Hello, I'm Babbakazoo! > > The other three pianos were typical, so I wasn't just having a *really* > bad day when I tuned them in March, or at least not all day. > > Tomorrow morning, I get to drive an hour to look at a Steinway D with > reported tonal problems in octave 5-6. Gonna need more CA. > > Ron N > >
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