Dead-On Unisons - Was Startlingly Stable Steinway

[A440A at aol.com]

Greetings, 

michelle  writes:

<Hi all.  I’m interested to know how many “don’t-touch’em unisons” y’all 

come across in your daily work>

Bob replied:

>>None. No such thing. The same forces that cause some notes to be out of 
tune 

have acted on all the others. The fact that some of them have not yet 
rendered 

across their bearing points doesn't mean that they aren't about to. Each 

string needs to be reset. >>

     I don't know that there can be any disagreement about this point, since 
we all approach our work in different ways, however, my experience is that 
there are many strings in my world that I don't need to touch, all the time. 
 
 To wit, ( and half-wits, even to my home group, "the witless"). 

    Over the years of tuning for recording, I would see the same pianos every 
morning for up to a week.  By day three, I knew where the notes were that 
were obviously more devious than I had originally thought, and they got more 
attention.   If it ain't moving now, it ain't gonna move.  By the third day, the 
piano is as stable as it is going to get.  
       Granted, these are nice, heavy, pianos, in very stable environment, 
but from a rendering standpoint, I think a string can be anchored by sufficent 
top-string tension, to resist all movement from hammer induced forces. With  
low draft angles, and super slick bearing surfaces, this stability may not be 
possible for most of us, but we can try.  A colleague of mine once tuned a piano 
for a concert in which a string was broken.  I was called in to fix it the 
next morning.  The unisons on either side of the breakage were sharp and out of 
tune with themselves. After the new wire was brought back up to tension, those 
notes fell back to dead-on.  That is string stability,(Baldwin SD), his 
"setting" of the pin was perfect, nothing moved, even when being played hard enough 
to break a string.  I can recognize this tech's tunings as soon as I put a 
hammer on the pins.  The top string is very tight, but not quite so much that 
strings will get pulled sharp. 
      
   To be specific to the topic, I don't remember finding a 'dead-on" unison 
very often.  Seems like I can always find one string that improves what ever 
the other two are doing.  It is  usually a waste of time to use an ETD when 
checking on this level, the ear can hear how various phase relationships resolve 
in a way that machines rarely allow. It is more feel than science to tune a 
unison, since imperfection is the norm. It is more of a sensual difference (be 
careful with that word, it can scare customers if you say it too soon) than an 
intellectual one. The practise also keeps the ears sensitized.  Often the 
result that sounds best will measure a little "off."  
     I give the pin a little wiggle if I find a "freebie" in a piano that I 
tuned last, but I don't automatically move the wire.  If it is a piano that is 
played a LOT,(teacher studios and practice rooms), I leave it, I just figured 
that was a string that had just had 500 test blows.  

Regards, 
 

Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html