Pitch Raise Sequence

[Farrell]

Excellent automobile analogy Brian! I often use automobile analogies in
explaining piano concepts to clients. I had never thought of this one
though. This one will help me lots (at least half my tunings at this stage
of the game include pitch raises - sometimes big ones).

I asked the lady the other day when was the last time her beautiful wurly
spinet had been tuned. She said she was not sure because it had just been
given to her, but she was sure it was fairly recent because the little girl
had been practicing on it for years while taking lessons. I said "It may not
be too bad then" and proceeded to check pitch. The darn thing was THE most
out-of-tune piano I have ever heard. Unisons varied by a half step. Notes
varied from a little less than a half-step flat to over 300 cents flat! My
heart wept for the little girl taking lessons :-(. I won't look for her at
Carnage Hall (of course, she obviously had alot of determination.......).

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Trout" <btrout@desupernet.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: Pitch Raise Sequence


snip>
> We as tuner types tend to get kind of 'up tight' about A440, at pitch
> pianos that started a LONG way from there.  Even with the best of efforts,
a
> full step pitch raise won't be as stable as a piano that's been tuned at
> A440 every 3 months for the last 10 years.  Our best efforts are certainly
> an improvement, but an example I sometimes use (mostly for people who work
> on their cars) is this.  If you have your oil changed every 2000 miles,
and
> you pull the dipstick a few miles after an oil change, it'll probably be
> very clean.  If you drive your car for 60,000 miles and never change your
> oil, then change it once and after just a very few miles, pull the
dipstick,
> even your new oil will not be nearly as clean as the oil in the other guys
> car that changed his faithfully every 2000 miles, in fact it'll probably
be
> pretty dirty.  Just like in changing the oil, a tuning now is certainly in
> order, and will indeed help.  But today's tuning won't undo 10 years of
> neglect in a two hour service call.  We'll go from here with a plan for
> regular service, and over the next several tunings, the piano will become
> more stable and more likely to stay closer to pitch.
>
> Brian Trout
> Quarryville, PA
> btrout@desupernet.net
>