Floating pitch

[Lance Lafargue]

It's amazing what just touching up unisons will do.  The pitch
swing/soundboard change here seems to be most noticed in the bass vs
tenor/treble bridges (listening to octaves near the break).  The bass
usually stays put while the tenor/treble varies.  Often, just a quick
adjustment of the bass (fewer strings to tune) and tuning unisons brings it
into much better shape.  You know it's going to swing again.  ;)

Lance Lafargue, RPT
Mandeville, LA
New Orleans Chapter, PTG
lancelafargue@bellsouth.net
985.72P.IANO

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-caut@ptg.org [mailto:owner-caut@ptg.org]On Behalf Of Jeff
Tanner
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 10:58 AM
To: caut@ptg.org
Subject: Re: Floating pitch


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