[CAUT] False Beats and George Winston

[Susan Kline]

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