test blows

[David Love]

I tend to agree.  It's also important that the hammer rotates on plane. 
That is, the pressure is always perpendicular to the pin.  This is easier
on a grand.  On uprights it's easy to start pulling down on the pin rather
than working the hammer around the pin.  My hammer technique involves a
series of smaller and smaller back and forth bumps until the zone you
mention is achieved--though this happens very quickly.  After awhile, you
can feel when the string reaches some type of equilibrium.  I might add
that I think it is important to develop a feel in the fingers for when the
pin moves.  Sometimes you can hear it as a small click, sometimes you have
to feel it in your fingers (or both).  Until I developed this type of feel,
tuning was much more difficult and slower.  The importance of it, I have
found, is that you have to develop a feel for how much the pin needs to
move, then as you apply pressure and the pitch begins to change with the
pin twisting, you need to turn off your ears, as it were, and focus on the
feel in your fingers to sense how far you have moved the pin.  Then turn
your ears back on as you take the twist out by a series of back and forth
movements and make any final adjustments necessary in the same manner.  The
advantage experienced tuners have over less experienced is that they have
learned to tune with their fingers as well as their ears, they know when to
listen and when not to, and they can turn it on and off at will, almost
instinctively.  

David Love
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net


> [Original Message]
> From: Bill Ballard <yardbird@vermontel.net>
> To: <davidlovepianos@earthlink.net>; Piano tech <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Date: 8/19/2003 7:27:36 PM
> Subject: Re: test blows

snip...

> It's my belief (IMHO) that tuning stability is in the right hand 
> (hand on the hammer), not the left. I judge stability with the simple 
> "bump-up-bump-down" test. If I gently bump the hammer in either 
> direction and if the temporary change in pitch is the same in both 
> directions, then I judge that, with the speaking length pitch moving 
> identically with the same size bump in both directions, both the pin 
> and the string are in the middle on the "stable zone". ..

> I believe that it's entirely possible to do a stable tuning, giving 
> the keys a blow no harder than what's possible with the finger 
> touching the key at all times. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm 
> willing to bet a sasparilla in it.
>
> Bill Ballard RPT
> NH Chapter, P.T.G.