I should have added, you are extremely lucky to have an environment, that allows this situation. John M. Ross Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada jrpiano at win.eastlink.ca ----- Original Message ----- From: AlliedPianoCraft To: Pianotech List Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 8:03 PM Subject: Re: for those on the fence about hearing protection.. "If the humidity changes, you can have the best technique in the world, and the piano pitch will have changed." John, I agree with you 100% on that point................. My point is that good hammer technique does not need firm blows. Al Guecia ----- Original Message ----- From: AlliedPianoCraft To: Pianotech List Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 6:22 PM Subject: Re: for those on the fence about hearing protection.. I have been tuning since 1964. I value my ears and I have never used firm blows. Today I tuned 3 pianos. One was for a church that I last tuned in December 07. The other was for a musician, that I last tuned in November 07 and the last was a player piano that I tuned in March of 07. None of these are equipped with a DC. Not one of them was more than 6 cent off in either direction. I am not bragging here. I'm just trying to make a point. I think It's all in hammer technique. IMHO firm blows are overrated and lead to hearing loss. Al Guecia ----- Original Message ----- From: erwinspiano at aol.com To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 4:38 PM Subject: Re: for those on the fence about hearing protection.. IMO Firm blows are a must for stable tunings but more importantly really good hammer technique. Good techique requires fewer firm blows. Dale Erwin -----Original Message----- From: Diane Hofstetter <dianepianotuner at msn.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:59 am Subject: for those on the fence about hearing protection.. It's good this topic has come up. It's one we have collectively been taught and now collectively need to objectively examine. I taught a class in hearing protection and did hearing tests at a piano tuning school last fall. Part of the class included measuring how loud they were tuning. When I asked the instructor to demonstrate tuning blows, he asked "should I do it like I teach them, or like they DO?" I said "both". So he proceeded to tune, using an average blow of 95dB. Then he demonstrated his students' blows. They measured 85dB. Afterwards, when I tested the students' hearing individually, they confessed to me that it hurt their ears to tune as loud as the instructor wanted them to. So I started wondering whether it is actually necessary to use extremely loud test blows, or whether it is PTG folklore? How many of us have actually done objective studies? Now we have ETD's we have the ability to measure our results down to thousandths of a cent. We can go back immediately after a tuning. the next day, the next week, and measure whether it is holding or not. In the 1990's my husband, who had previously been involved in quality control, devised a graph and we started measuring every tuning on the piano before we tuned it. This allowed us to have a picture of the results of our previous tunings. It gave us information on the seasonal tuning changes--helped sell Damppchasers. It helped us selll pitch raises. It gave information on the changes in pitch in the conference center concert instruments so we knew what time to tune to have the piano at pitch. It gave us information on our tuning stability. When I went back to school, more than full time to study hearing, I stopped tuning for a year and a half. One day I opened a little used dresser drawer, and gasped! It was filled with devices I used to use to try to stop the pain in my left fingers, wrist, arm, shoulder.......... The worst part is that those pianos I hurt myself on three years ago are no longer in tune, but I have residual pain. Diane for those on the fence about hearing protection.. Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net < > Sorry I don't use a "trusty etd" I instead use my "trusty god given > ears" and I haven't experienced what you describe. > > Mike I tune aurally, and I sure have, which is why I let up on the pounding. Ron N Diane Hofstetter ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080320/1a41ab41/attachment-0001.html
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