Bill, I think Tim has given you good advice. While using emery cloth on the capo might give you good results, partly because letting down the strings enough for it will always result in a slight shift of the wire, so that the bearings and bridge pins touch fresh places, it would be better to do this a week or two before a touchy concert, so you won't be settling wire on the day itself. I noticed when I tuned for George Winston (Baldwin SD-10, but a good one) that at intermission, when I found about six or seven mutes in the middle treble (apparently this was considered a smaller than average number!) that he was hearing voicing instead of unisons on several of the notes. So, if you could voice the top end very evenly, even if you can't get rid of all the false beats, that might help. If a note in the top octave has very thin felt and sounds bright from lots of wild beats, one (only ONE!) drop of vodka right in the hammer grooves I have found helpful, in place of needling. There's so little to needle up there, and the felt is so hardened. Don't repeat the vodka treatment ... well, I wouldn't repeat the treatment. And it sometimes is hard to reverse if overdone, but I've only had good results from one drop, on chosen hammers in octave 7. Mostly those notes are just voiced hard as granite, in hopes of louder sound, and to heck with evenness or any sense of cushion. No wonder the false beats sound so wild, especially since they are so fast up there. George Winston is the only artist I've tuned for who seemed to want to avoid all contact with me. Well, he seems high-strung in an unusual sort of way. I decided that this was his usual practice, so I didn't take it personally, I left him strictly alone, and (I heard from his contact person that) he seemed happy enough with the results, and he didn't get on my case. Afterwards, the arts center director asked me what I had done to the piano, because apparently he really liked it, or perhaps he just liked it more than the director expected, who can tell? "Oh, a little of this and a little of that," I replied, because I really had no idea what Mr. Winston did or didn't like. From listening to the concert I had the impression that he has a very sensitive reaction to piano sound, but he seemed to have had little connection to normal classical piano training. But if people like what he is offering -- that's fine. Susan Kline >Bill, >In conjunction with the massaging.... I tap the strings sideways in >situations like this all the time and have not broken a string. I >would do that and the massaging before trying the emery cloth, as >that would be a pain on only one unison by itself. If the massage >and the sideways don't help, then shoeshining the capo is probably >worth the trouble. >tim g
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