"training" pianos?

[Carman Gentile]

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...The client told me that thier piano didn't stay in tune for very long 
and that the previous tuner had told her that it was probably because she 
didn't have it tuned regularly when she first got it. (This piano had not 
been tuned for over a year after they first got it.) Their tuner said that 
it hadn't been "trained" properly, and it would never hold a tune very well...
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    My own experience is that the more regularly a piano is tuned, the more 
stable the tuning remains between service appointments.  It is as though 
the instrument has formed it's tuning the same way a pair of shoes forms to 
our feet.  How this happens exactly, I do not know but we do know that 
there are tremendous forces occurring within a piano, even when it is at 
rest.  The tension of the strings against the bridges and soundboard, the 
forces between the soundboard edges and case rim, and the influences of 
changes in temperature and humidity all combine (somehow) to affect the 
piano's anatomy and physiology. It seems to me that when we add our own 
influence to the string tensions when tuning, this has the effect of 
"training" or molding the instrument to stabilize more readily to its 
correct tuning.  I have not found the right choice of words to use to 
explain this to my clients.

    I have used the analogy that a neglected piano is like an ill-mannered 
child with a strong will.  It takes repeated corrective measures to get it 
to stay on the right path.
    May I suggest that the above tuner's explanation may not have been too 
much B.S. after all, but just his own effort to illustrate the necessity of 
regular tunings.

Carman Gentile RPT
Redwood Chapter
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