What I've found is that by allowing pitch to float, the pianos stay nearer A440 than when I used to set every A4 at 440 every time. Strangely, by allowing the pitch to float, the amount of float I've had to allow has shrunken. So, when I was fighting for 440, I was working against it at the same time! I'm still raising and lowering pitch, just not as much nor as often. Even the DC systems here aren't effective enough to maintain 440 all the time -- better than before DC, but I still find myself having to allow as much as 6¢ sharp in August for some of those, pushing down a large portion of the scale to get there. David I. wrote: >do any of you CAUT techs find you can get more accomplished by >quicker/speed tunings more often or careful tunings less often? I've quit spending an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half working for perfect aural tunings because thanks to the humidity cycling, all that work is out the window in a few days, sometimes even hours, along with my self-esteem. I started cutting my tuning time and not worrying about perfect tunings and I can keep more pianos in better tune longer. I bought an SAT III, and I've been getting good stable tunings in 35 to 45 minutes. The SAT makes it easier (faster) to determine how much to float, too. I had the same drive as Wim when I started here. But I got really really tired of continuously putting my soul into something I couldn't accomplish and the faculty and students really didn't care about. What they want is pianos that sound in tune, close enough to pitch they can play with, and I can accomplish that more effectively by not fighting for 440. I've had more compliments on the pianos since I started allowing pitch to float and NO ONE has complained about the pitch of A4. We could start a whole new discussion on the other 87 notes. Jeff Jeff Tanner Piano Technician School of Music 813 Assembly ST University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 (803)-777-4392 jtanner@mozart.sc.edu
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