<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Re: [CAUT] tuning frequency</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> On 2/26/05 3:07 PM, "Wimblees@aol.com" <W= imblees@aol.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE>There is minor argumen= t between the piano faculty and myself as to how often their pianos should b= e tuned. They want to know why their pianos need tuning once a week. (and th= ey do need it, especially during the winter). One of the professors claims t= hat at another university she worked at, her piano lasted 8 weeks.   How often are you guys tuning the piano faculty pianos, presuming they get = played heavily about 30 hours a week?   Wim Willem Blees, RPT Piano Technician School of Music University of Alabama </BLOCKQUOTE>    Apparently stud= io pianos receive weekly attention at Juilliard – so a new prof here (= who had been there) told me – wanting me to give her instrument that k= ind of care (I quickly disabused her of that expectation). Of course, weekly= “attention” is kind of like what we (or at least I) do to the c= oncert instruments: touch up unisons for the most part, address pitch migrat= ion when it gets outside reasonable parameters (more than minus 1 cent or pl= us 2 cents for sure, often closer when dealing with some wind instruments ha= ving concerts), and do various bits of regulation and voicing as time permit= s and issues arise.     For my part, piano professor studios get about 3 ti= mes a semester (well, three times fall, twice in spring, reflecting our humi= dity cycles), others more like three to four a year. Of these latter, it wou= ld be twice a year for a number of them if we didn’t have a loan progr= am. But frequency depends on HVAC/weather and my own capacity/available time= . I try to keep a balance between tuning and continual reconditioning, regul= ation and voicing maintenance.     I will say that I have found over the years that it= pays to just do your absolute best tuning – most solid and “per= fect” (with concentration on perfection of unisons) - _all_ the= time. I used to do fast “good enough” work to try to have as mu= ch of the inventory “in tune” as much of the time as possible. I= find that if I concentrate on absolutely solid stability, with impeccable u= nisons, every tuning, the results are much better and very noticeably so. Go= od for one’s reputation among faculty, students and the public as well= . If you don’t have time to tune as often as needed, that’s excu= sable. If the quality of the tuning that you do isn’t up to snuff, tha= t’s bad and reflects on your skill. And all it takes is one bad unison= for the entire tuning to be heard by everybody as bad. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico </BODY> </HTML>