Pitch Raising Techniques

[Dave Nereson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matthew Todd" <toddpianoworks@yahoo.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 9:15 PM
Subject: Pitch Raising Techniques
  > Can some of you tell me what pitch raising techniques work the best for 
you??
> Thanks!

    For me, it's faster to raise pitch without the ETA (ETD).  I overshoot 
between 20 and 50%, depending on the piano.  The amount of overshoot is 
determined partly by an intuitive guess.  If it's a new piano that I suspect 
has only had one or two tunings in the store, and it's two beats flat at A 
49, I'll pitch-raise it to one beat sharp (50%).  And if it's 7 beats flat, 
I'll still overshoot by 3 or 4 beats, which is more than an ETD might do, 
but I know it's going to stretch and go flat anyway, plus most people let 
'em go too long, so I might as well leave it a bit sharp.
    But on an older piano, I don't overshoot as much because the strings are 
already stretched, and some of 'em might break, so if it's, say, 6 beats 
flat, I'll pitch raise it to 2 beats sharp (about 30%) at A 49.
    If the piano is really old (before 1900), or if I sense or observe that 
the piano seems brittle, unlikely to hold a tuning at a higher tension, or 
has a propensity to break strings, or if I see that strings have been 
replaced or spliced, I'll not pitch-raise it above A=440, and if it's really 
flat (1/2-step or more), I'll advise the owner that it may not be advisable 
to bring it up to standard pitch.
    There are exceptions.  If I think it was up to pitch at some point not 
too long ago, sometimes I'll tighten plate screws and/or seat bridge pins to 
jostle the strings a bit at their bearing points, then take the pitch-raise 
risk.
    I strip mute the piano, tune the temperament using one octave and 4ths 
and 5ths -- no other checks -- then do all the octaves up, right-hand 
unisons coming down, left-hand unisons going back up, then the bass octaves, 
then their unisons.  That's the fastest way for me.  I only do "unisons as 
you go" for the final tuning.  I've tried doing "unisons as you go" on a 
pitch raise and don't find it to be any more stable than my faster method, 
plus I don't have to keep leap-frogging mutes.
    --David Nereson, RPT