Hi, Marshall I like checking contiguous 4ths as well as thirds -- that is, fourth up, fourth down, from the same note. Get it well settled between the two. I don't use the 6th-10th test. Maybe I should experiment with it. Yes, I find that the contiguous thirds rate of change differs on different pianos. It seems to work pretty well just to make them progress the same. Sometimes I have trouble on tiny little spinets where the wound strings start within the temperament octave. On troublesome pianos it can be kind of nice to extend the contiguous thirds below the F to F octave. That is, put in the low C# and the lower A, and also the higher A (440), and see if you can get them to proceed evenly all the way across. I don't see any real way around the problem with the bass in spinets sounding sharp, especially in the lowest notes. I push them down as far as I can without the octaves going into full rebellion. Some very short pianos seem to accept this better than others. I use the (interior) third-sixth test a lot in the bass. It can also tell me how hard I'm pushing it. On spinets with hard bass tuning I also like to test multiple octaves instead of just depending on a single octave for stretch. I get a better feeling for how it's going to work when people play, I think. It's frustrating, no doubt about it, tuning those very short bass strings. Such ambiguity, sounding flat and sharp at the same time, depending on which set of mental "ears" one is asking. An important idea for something this challenging is to be sure you are picking the SAME compromise for all of them. What can be heard far too easily is using one stretch for some and a different stretch for others. Have you been finding, now and then, that a previous tuner went way wrong with one or two of those lowest bass notes on spinets? I think that sometimes the machine, and sometimes the ear of the tuner, latches onto the wrong harmonic, and suddenly in the middle of notes tuned fairly normally, one is over a whole tone flat. It takes real courage to try to bring it up, hoping to really be right about where it is. It has to be almost all the way back up before it suddenly sounds like the others, and yes, it really was that flat. I keep wondering if someday I'll be wrong and bust one? So far not. I get spoiled with the wonderful nine foot beasts. Susan On 2/1/2011 8:50 PM, Marshall Gisondi wrote: > Hi Susan, > That smigeon sure comes in handy. I always feel the need to check > with a test especially on lousey pianos that have a ton of > inharmonisity. The fourth will still sound too wild but wil test OK > with that 3rd 6th test. Do you use the 6th 10th test with the 5ths? > > Lim we were taught at the school to have an even progression that the > contiguous thirds should progress the step from f3 and a3 third to a > to c#4 should not be to big of a jump but have an increase in speed. > > I find on some pianos that the contiguous 3rds seem really close in > speed that there isn't much room to widen the octave. Do you guys eve > run into this on cheap pianos? > Marshall > > > Marshall Gisondi Piano Technician > Marshall's Piano Service > */pianotune05 at hotmail.com/* > 215-510-9400 > */www.phillytuner.com <http://www.phillytuner.com/> /* > Graduate of The School of Piano Technology for the Blind > www.pianotuningschool.org <http://www.pianotuningschool.org/> > Vancouver, WA > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110201/2fa9a199/attachment.htm>
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