test blows

[Piannaman@aol.com]

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List,

Every piano is different:  and elderly upright with cedar shanks will 
certainly get more gentle treatment from me than a new Asian piano.  Some of the new 
pianos I tune in-store can be knocked a whole step south in the killer 
octave-high treble range.  Worse yet, when I do "free" tunings, I sometimes follow up 
"tooners" who have done the floor tuning.  They have no clue how to put 
stability into an instrument.  

First thing I do on a never-been tuned or "tooned" once piano?  Beat on it 
chromatically from the treble break to C-88 and back down BEFORE I EVER LAY 
HAMMER TO PIN.  This section is by far the easiest to knock out of whack.  

Then I can start the pitch raise.

  Is this effective with new pianos?  When I do an in-home tuning of a piano 
that I've prepped in the store, unless there are severe environmental factors 
involved, the piano is usually well on it's way to stability.  

Would I do that with an old Knabe Upright?  Not unless I wanted to spend a 
good chunk of my day replacing hammer shanks and other action parts.

Test blows should indeed be firm enough to make certain the the string is 
stable.  Most effective for me is a pretty firm test blow followed in rapid 
succession by a light listening blow that allows me to hear the beating, whining, 
or lack thereof.

Just my two cents,

Dave Stahl



In a message dated 8/19/03 9:34:51 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net writes:


> No, the string wasn't properly settled before the test blow.  The point was
> that it doesn't require an "extremely hard test blow", as stated in the
> original post, to do that.  Firm blows while manipulating the pin with
> proper hammer technique will accomplish dependable stability (even through
> a Rachmaninov performance).  Extremely hard test blows can actually drive
> the pitch sharp, at least temporarily.  If you are strip muting the piano
> and come back to tune unisons later, it can slip back flat with subsequent
> playing and you will end up pulling your unisons to a note which is flat
> (another reason to tune unisons as you go).  In that way, it would be
> counterproductive (re another post).  This is not to mention the wear and
> tear on your ears, hands, wrists, fingers, etc., that extremely hard test
> blows deliver over time.  Many people do tune successfully with extremely
> hard test blows, I just think it's unnecessary.    



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