[pianotech] regulation without a ruler (was: Old can of worms)

[Encore Pianos]

No worries, Susan.  I concur with your remarks.  I will elaborate by saying that I have been rebuilding pianos, their actions , and regulating them since 1973.  I certainly know how to "regulate by numbers" and find them useful as a general guidepost.  I do not play piano, but I have developed sensitivities to touch that have proven to be quite valuable.  On many an occasion I have been regulating an action where, on the one hand, it is telling me everything is good by the numbers; yet on the other hand, I am feeling something that I often can't describe but feels like something isn't quite right.  It'll nag at me until I stop to investigate.  I look and look until I find the culprit, sometimes right away, sometimes not.  It can turn out to be weirdball stuff I have not seen before.  

I have learned to trust my instincts when the action feels weird.  If it was all by numbers, I would just finish the job and put it into  the hands of the pianist.  If he or she is a good, sensitive player, they will not be satisfied, but everything is supposedly "perfect".  But since I trust my sense of touch, I can find the problem and fix it before the pianist ever sees it.  It serves me well.  

I have heard staggeringly good tunings done by an ETD, generally done by superb techs who have tuned aurally for a long time before switching.  They combine their developed aural skills with the electronic tuning in a complementary fashion.  As Mark Dierauf said earlier, using the ETD made him a better aural tuner when he wanted to use that skillset, and  those aural skills can be used to ehance and refine the electronic tunings that are done.  It' s all good.  

If one lacks intellectual curiosity, has no particular interest in building their skills, and is satisfied with "average" work,  a purely electronic tuning is adequate to this task.  But you will not work for the better musicians, because they will see a blind spot in your work that you do not even know is there.     

In this work like so many others, the way you keep from stagnating is by challenging yourself regularly.  

Will Truitt

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Susan Kline
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 9:55 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] regulation without a ruler (was: Old can of worms)

On 5/10/2012 11:57 PM, David Love wrote:
> Maybe during the regulation part of the RPT test we should have people 
> do that without the benefit of any measuring devices, just by feel.

That actually is a pretty good idea -- well, not for the test, because the test depends on numbers to be "impartial" (and, to my mind, that is one difficulty with testing piano work.) The pianist plays by feel. If you know the ratios you want, and the tradeoffs you cannot avoid,  and you can eyeball things like check distance, and you have a good feel for aftertouch, you might end up better without measurements than a regulation purely by the numbers, especially if a particular piano is "geometrically challenged". And for some brands specs are not available, anyhow. Working without measuring tools, one is in closer contact with the particular instrument itself, instead of some theoretical model which may or may not be a good match with the real piano for things like string height, bore distance, worn hammers, etc.

Of course, this demands a good sense of touch when actually playing a piano, and a feeling for musicality and for what artists require. Mcuh easier to just plug in some numbers. So much less thinking and listening and feeling. Think of the time which can be saved! Well, not really, because measuring takes time. But maybe mental effort?

Susan Kline (ducking in advance)