Strange call

[Overs Pianos]

Terry, Patrick, Ron N and list,

I suspect that the phenomenon you are describing, is something I have 
discovered to be a symptom of acoustic trauma. As we get older we 
tend to require the tuning stretch to be more extreme to satisfy our 
ageing sense of pitch.

When I was a young tuner in my early twenties, I used to do 
occasional work for the local Bösendorfer agent. This elderly man was 
a 'tuner technician' from a particularly old school. The man was 
seventy plus and the tuning skills which he may have once had, 
unfortunately had long since departed. Now this elderly gentleman had 
quite a large tuning clientele, and when he finally retired out the 
Sydney area many of his clients came to me for service (ie. of the 
piano variety). In almost every case, by C88, the pitch was pulled 
sharp to the E flat above the C88. 'Deaf as a post', he was.

After four years in the tuning business I began to work for the 
Australian Broadcasting Corporation. This brought me in contact with 
many concert artists (several of whom had practiced for many hours a 
day for many years). Some had clearly developed hearing damage and 
loss. As a technician, the amount of stretch we put in a piano will 
always be a matter of judgement (for the aural tuner at least), and I 
have on many occasions sought the opinion of the pianist as to their 
preferred stretch. I have noticed that pianists with greater hearing 
loss (over the years you get to know the symptoms) prefer more 
stretch in the extreme treble. This I believe, is also the reason why 
concert artists with hearing loss prefer pianos to be voiced much 
brighter than those younger players who are yet to lose their 
hearing. To accommodate this problem when I was doing a lot of 
concert tuning, when tuning for a pianist for the first time, I would 
try to listen to a couple of their Cd recordings and note their age 
also, to assess their possible hearing damage. Using this 
information, I would set the piano voicing to a suitable level, in an 
attempt to satisfy the performer. Thus, if the pianist was older and 
probably deafer, I would tend to delay voicing that piano which had 
got a little bright. Instead, I might just voice back a few of the 
brighter notes in the 'high traffic' areas to keep the voicing 
uniform, but maintain the overall level of brightness. On the other 
hand, if I was tuning for a young rising star, I might voice back the 
entire piano if it had got a little bright. After all, concert 
instruments require some voicing every month or two. It just seemed a 
good idea to time those service intervals, allowing the voicing level 
to rise and fall slightly, timing it to the schedule of the 
performers and their level of hearing loss.

One thing's for sure, older piano technicians and orchestral players 
alike, are likely to be suffering from some considerable hearing 
loss, and will tend to prefer pianos which are stretched to the 
'hilt' and voiced to simulate breaking glass.

At forty seven I must be heading in that direction.

Regards to all,

Ron O
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Website:  http://www.overspianos.com.au
Email:      mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au
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