..this bass is still out of tune..

[David M. Porritt]

Phil:

I had a piano teacher years ago who had a Mason & Hamlin 50" upright.  She
then bought a Baldwin SF10 and had big expectations of it.  After I tuned it
she played C#1 G#1 fifth and said it didn't sound good.  

Sometimes I'm proudest of the times I haven't laughed out loud!

dp

____________________
David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu
 
-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Phil Bondi
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 2:36 PM
To: Newtonville
Subject: ..this bass is still out of tune..

Hi all. A funny story to share:

Baldwin L - in good condition with a recently 
retired doctor at the steering wheel. The piano 
was recently moved, and the doctor was concerned 
with the bass being in tune. I assured him the 
bass was no more out of tune than the rest of 
the piano, so I proceeded. As I was tuning, the 
doctor asked again about the bass and the 
possibility of having to 'replace the tuning 
pins' because they're not holding a 
tune'...sounds like he's been reading too much 
internet garbage lately..anyway, I assured him 
his torque was just fine..and I advised him that 
replacing anything regarding the pins was 
unnecessary.

I noticed the regulation needing some work, so 
we made another appointment to work on it. That 
appointment was today. The first words out of 
his mouth " the bass is out of tune. Please take 
care of it". Well, there was a slight wobble in 
D#2, so I fixed that..

After taking care of the regulation problems, I 
asked him to sit down and play. The first thing 
he does is play a 10th from C1 to E2 - he tells 
me "that doesn't sound good"..I agreed. There is 
such a thing as "low interval limits". I know I 
didn't fully convince him that such a phenomenon 
exists, but he agreed he's never seen music 
written down there with that 10th.

He did like the work that I did to the 
regulation - it just needed some TLC - blow 
distance, let-off, drop, etc. - re-surface the 
hammers - it played nice when I got done, but I 
can't do anything to a C1-E2 10th to make that 
sound good!

-Phil Bondi(Fl)