[CAUT] False Beats and George Winston

[Tim Coates]

Bill,

Try massaging the strings with a very small brass rod that has a  
small groove cut in it.   Massage both the speaking and non speaking  
segments right up the bridge pins.  Don't use a heavy touch.

Tim Coates


On Mar 15, 2007, at 2:23 PM, maxpiano wrote:

> In a performance/theater venue, I service a Yamaha CFIII that has  
> some fast false beat issues on 2-3 keys in the top octave and very  
> few false beats in the rest of the piano.  I am told this was the  
> piano Andre Watt used during his (brief?) departure from the  
> Steinway Artist fold some 15 years ago. Nothing I have tried so far  
> on D#7 and F7 has worked, such as tapping the bridge pins.  The  
> beats do not respond to pushing against the bridge pins with a  
> screwdriver, so I am assuming it is not an issue of loose bridge pins.
>
> George Winston is to be there a week from tomorrow.  This will be  
> about the fourth time I have tuned this piano for his concerts.  He  
> complains about unisons in the treble, and doesn't seem to know how  
> to sort out the difference between bad unisons and false beats.  I  
> get the impression he is not open to the suggestion that false  
> beats are par for the course up there, and he wants all the focus  
> he can get at the top.  He has the habit of carrying a bunch of  
> rubber mutes with him and laying them next to the tuning pins  
> wherever he detects a bad unison, both before the concert after he  
> has practiced, and during the show for touch-up at intermission.   
> Interesting, at intermission there may be some hairy unisons in the  
> tenor/low treble with no mutes laid down, but a proliferation of  
> them by the top octave!
>
> I am wondering if it would help, when I go to prepare the piano a  
> week from today, a day ahead of the concert (I'll be touching it up  
> the afternoon of the concert) if I would go prepared with emery  
> cloth strips to shoeshine the capo bar on the affected notes.  I  
> trust I could get the strings settled down again after the  
> loosening.  I have also thought of Roger Jolly's suggestion of  
> taking the rear end of a coil lifter tool (the 3 notches for  
> aligning strings), setting it onto the 3 strings of a unison and  
> driving it sideways and back, but I don't want to risk breaking  
> strings.
>
> Any advice or other suggestions for quieting the false beats in the  
> top octave?
>
> Bill Maxim, RPT
> Columbia, SC