more on floating pitch

[Porritt, David]

I think that by compromising the piano will be marginally more stable.
I float mine at pretty close to what A4 gives me and in your case that
would be a raise in the bass and lowering in other areas, but I can live
with that.  

dp


David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On
Behalf Of Mike Spalding
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 3:24 PM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: more on floating pitch

I guess I failed to make my point clear.  I am not asking for a tutorial

on pitch raising - I feel I have a method that works well for me within 
the amount of time the school is paying for.  The point is, when the 
humidity increased from 38% to 68%, parts of the piano barely moved, and

others moved a lot.  This is the way most pianos behave (except perhaps 
for a Nossamanized concert grand) Suppose I float the pitch at +8c.  I'm

pitch-raising the bass up to 8c, I'm pitch lowering the tenor up to 16c,

and the treble up to 27c.  Pick another float frequency, the situation 
is the same.  The majority of the piano gets a significant pitch 
correction in order to match any chosen float pitch.  Therefore, there's

no benefit to floating.  Might as well target 440 every time, it won't 
be any less work, or any less stable, than floating at some other 
pitch.  And no matter what pitch the piano gets tuned to, when the 
weather shifts the piano will go out of tune with itself, whether its 
drifting towards A440 or away from A440.  So why not target A=440 every 
time?

Mike

Jon Page wrote:
> >A0 +0, A1 +3, A2 +5, A3 +18, A4 +12, A5 +24, A6 + 35, A7 +20.
>
> If being dead on 440 is not important (studio work) I would tune this
> piano at +8c.   It will be back down to 440 or lower in a few months.
>
> Unless you're desperate for work, float the pitch. one pass.
> -- 
>   
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Page
and John Formsma Wrote:

I would assume the problem came when the piano was tuned to A440 in 
March.  This would likely be just before the RH begins to rise (at least

it does here in Mississippi around that time).  If the piano had been 
tuned to A439 then, it would be closer to A440 now.

I would agree that a one-pass tuning might not have every note "spot 
on."  However, one could get the piano in decent musical shape with a 
one-pass tuning ... even with numbers that you mention below. Since this

is a school piano, and schools generally won't pay for a pitch 
correction, I'd do the best I could with a single pass.

My attempt would be stabilizing the entire middle section to A440 first.

 (By tuning all unisons there.)  Then begin working on the treble, 
tuning slightly flat octaves, and tuning unisons as you go.  By 
listening to your progress, it will become evident if you've chosen the 
right amount of "flatness" to your octaves.  My first try would be 
tuning the treble so that the octave-fifth has a beat of 1-2 bps.  This 
would be perhaps even a slightly flat double octave.  But, it usually 
goes back up when it's that sharp, so you anticipate that.

If you have to correct some, you have to correct some. <G>  It's not 
that hard with shimming.  I'd just correct the worst ones in the time 
that I got paid for.

-- 
JF