Thanks for your comments. The piano I mentioned had a Dampp-Chaser with undercover, and was tuned regularly. The entire piano was within a few cents, and only needed a fine tuning. I had no reason to suspect any significant drifting occurred, but anything is possible, especially if people forget to refill the DC. Ron Nossaman wrote: > >> If a string is binding on a v-bar. I don't want the pianist to be the >> one to balance out the tension, because I would not expect any repeat >> business from that customer. > > The point I've tried to make for many years, still unsuccessfully, is > that the problem isn't necessarily at the V bar, as is almost > universally assumed. When we get instant aural (or visual) > verification of change with any pin movement, then test blows are > redundant if we have any idea what we're doing with the tuning hammer > - if it's coming from the V bar. Tune a string in the capo section, > using light blows. Get it where you want it, and where it stays there > through a few more light blows. Then whack it. Depending on the > severity and direction of humidity swings the piano had been through > since you last tuned it, and how far you moved the string to tune it > this time, it will either not change perceptibly, or drop anywhere > from just detectable, to 4+ beats. Unless we're hopelessly incompetent > with a tuning hammer, that pitch drop didn't come from the V bar. It > came through the bridge. Now, tune the string again, using the same > soft blows as the first time. Get it where you want it, and whack it > again. What happens? It stays put, if you know how to run the hammer. > If we couldn't stabilize the string with soft blows the first time, > why could we the second? Try it on the next string (next note). You'll > likely get a similar effect. Did you forget how to run the hammer > since the second pass on that last string. No, of course not. You just > didn't hit it hard enough, at least once, to find out if it would > render through the bridge before you quit tuning it. On the third > string (next note), don't touch the pin at all. Note where the pitch > is, and whack it. If the other two strings dropped in pitch, this one > likely will too, and you hadn't laid hammer to it yet, so you can't > blame hammer technique. > > Continual pounding will cause a string to creep sharp when we quit and > come back to check in a minute or so. This, I think, comes from the V > bar because we weren't getting an accurate representation of what we > had when we left it. So it's possible to pound too hard as well as not > hard enough. > > It's a combination of things. The people who say you can tune softly > with stability with just good hammer technique are either tuning > pianos who's MC hasn't changed at all since they last tuned it, and > they're making one cent revisions, or they aren't aware of how lousy > their tunings sound the week after they did them. Aside from the > unusually inept "tooner", virtually all of the tuners I've followed > from one to three weeks after their efforts has been a "don't have to > hit 'em to get 'em stable" practitioner. If you're tuning in real > world climate conditions, you *do* have to hit 'em enough, at least > once, to find out what slack the back scale has to give you. Then you > adjust your approach to what the piano tells you is necessary. > > >> I recently tuned a church grand in which, before tuning, I could mute >> off a string in the octave 7 region, and knock it 3 to 8 cents flat >> with just one moderate test blow (not pounding, but about as hard as >> I might actually strike a key when playing my favorite Liszt Etude). >> The previous tuner might suggest I play too hard, but I would say he >> did not use firm enough test blows, and got lucky that nobody played >> it hard enough to cause a problem. > > I have pianos that do the same thing. Since I'm the previous tuner, I > know it wasn't the last guy not hitting them hard enough. The pianos I > find this in have typically gone through 40%+ humidity swings between > tunings. These same pianos, tuned again in the same season a couple of > months later (wedding funeral, etc), don't do this. Tuned again at > their regularly scheduled time, they do. When I follow someone a week > of stable weather after he tuned it and can do this, it's not humidity. > Ron N > > > -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
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