---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Speaking of false beats, I had yet another interesting tuning job today. They come in droves, don't they? One of the stores I contract for loaned a new Seiler 180 grand--the one with the titanium case and the plexiglass lid, not to mention full on midi/electro capablities--to a pianist for a gig in a local mall. After being forced to park nearly half a mile away, I lugged my tools around until I found an open door at 8 AM. Fortunately, the Nordstrom and Macy's customers would not begin arriving until nearly 10 AM, so I figured I'd have a chance to crank this one out quickly. Tuning in a mall would be like tuning in a cave if it weren't for the music piped in at about 90 decibels(my favorite was the cover of Lionel Ritchie's "All Night Long":-). For the 20/40 cent pitch raze, I didn't even bother using my ears much. I did, however, say many silent thank yous to Robert Scott for inventing TuneLab. Finished the pitch raise, and still couldn't find a security guard to help me turn off the blasted music. I fine tune aurally most of the time, but once again, I was glad to have Tunelab on hand. It was impossible to hear some notes correctly. A couple of guards finally walked by, and within seconds, they contacted the office and the music was off in my quadrant of the mall. Whew. While tuning, I got the occasional glance from Starbuck's patrons, and a few passers-by asked "how much is this baby?" They moved on rather quickly when I quoted them the 125k list price, roughly twice what the beemer down the row was going for. Tuning in a mall is weird. You hit a note, and it echos back to you a fraction of a second later, so it really sounds like a beat. Happily, the piano only had false beats near the treble plate struts. Otherwise, I'd probably still be there trying to tune out that nice little "extra vibrato". When I finally finished, it was kind of fun to sit there and crank out "There will Never Be Another You" on a really nice piano in a massive man-made cavern. In talking with the artist, Mr. Scott Davis, I found out that he does this every weekend and he sells many CDs that way. New Age piano players in a mall...only in America! Dave Stahl Promote Harmony in the Universe--Tune Your Piano! In a message dated 8/30/03 9:23:14 AM Pacific Daylight Time, tune4u@earthlink.net writes: > David's post on the amazingly stable Kawai grand triggered this > post--specifically that it had high treble false beats in an acustically live room. > > I recently tuned a 60's era spinet that was way out of wack. The customer > wanted to know if it was a "keeper" or whether she should start saving for a > new piano. Ignoring the obvious and prejudicial answer, I said that we'd have > to see how it sounds after repairs and tuning. > > After bridge repairs, two new strings, a 120+ cent pitch raise and two > tuning passes, it sounded amazingly not-so-bad. I told her so and she agreed. As > the discussion was rather in depth and she wanted me to be frank--Frank Who? > one might ask--I did point out that there were false beats in the upper > treble. She asked me to demonstrate, and I did. > > This was her reaction: "Well, that's just a bonus: extra vibrato." > > So you see, we should have been promoting the positive side of this > phenomenon all along! > > Alan R. Barnard > Salem, MO > ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/9e/b2/bf/2a/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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