left-handed tuning

[Ron Nossaman]

Michelle Smith wrote:
> Thanks to everyone for your informative responses!  The reason I started 
> thinking about all of this was because of a piano I never want to see 
> again.  (Ha Ha!)  It was a school upright that had been sitting in a 
> small practice room forever.  Something had happened with the pinblock 
> and the pins would barely move!  When I tuned left handed, I seemed to 
> have to bring the string really far sharp to get the pin to move even 
> slightly.  One of the strings broke and many others were probably on 
> their way.  When I switched to my right hand, the pins moved a little 
> easier.  My theory is that the point of pressure is different when 
> tuning left handed (upward) as opposed to right handed (downward) and 
> that particular piano just couldn’t take it. 

What's happening is pin flex - flag poling, and twist. Pulling 
in the direction of the string (down, in a vertical), you can 
move the pin quite a ways in the block and barely hear the 
pitch change. Then you let the pressure off and it goes sharp. 
Pushing up left handed opposite the direction of the string, 
the opposite happens. There's a hammer position for verticals 
that, when you're pulling in the right direction, the downward 
pin flex very nearly equals the twist you're putting in the 
pin, and when you let go, they cancel and the pitch doesn't 
change. It's not a magic bullet, it's just another of a 
hundred things you notice in tuning, and adapt for as you go.
Ron N