Concert tuning stability fuse

[allen@pengar.com]

Time for a newbie comment FWIW

> The idea is not to "hammer
> the strings down to pitch" without the need for good hammer technic, but to hit
> the piano harder than any concert pianist can and will. One "test" blow however
> hard will not tell if the note will stay in tune. Certainly not when the
> pianist is playing extremely hard repeatedly.

That has been my experience, too.

Almost all of my tuning is with older uprights that haven't been
tuned in a long time.  The pins aren't tight enough to cause torsion
in the pins, so my my problem is getting the strings set.  Many of
the strings in most of the pianos don't want to slide across the
bridge and under the pressure bar.  If there is a hammer technique
(other than decreasing tension before increasing it) that will get
the strings to move through the high friction, I would like to learn
it.  So far, hitting the keys very hard is the only way I have found
to set the strings, and I've seen a lot of examples where I've had to
hit the keys several times.  I use a PT100 and that gives me a 0.2
cent resolution in small changes in frequency.  After I adjust a
string, I hit the keys several times, and it is common to have a
small change (0.2 cent) occur after I've hit the keys several times.
I readjust the string and then hit the keys again.  I don't leave
that note until I can hit the keys 10-15 times very hard and have no
(within the 0.2 cent resolution) change in pitch occur.  So, I'm not
pounding the strings *into* pitch, I'm tring to pound them *out* of
pitch

Newer pianos I've tuned don't have the high friction to string
movement that I encounter in old pianos, and I don't do as much hard
pounding on them as I do on older pianos, although I still hit the
keys hard several times.

/Allen Leigh
South Jordan, Utah