[pianotech] tuning equipment

[Susan Kline]

If she's 50 years old, buy her a decent-not-fancy extension hammer, and 
pull it out.
I prefer a short head and a high angle.

If she wants to dabble with tuning for the sheer interest, why get her 
an ETD? She
doesn't need to get through a work load or use speed at tuning to 
support a family.
If she wants interest, why delegate all the fun parts to a machine?

What might be fun enough for her to keep on working would be to 
understand from the inside
out how a temperament works and why it has to be the way it is. I agree, 
start her
with unisons, and then gradually spread out from there. Once she has 
spent a few
hours on unisons, set her to correcting somewhat mistuned octaves simply 
using her
ear without tests. She might already have an excellent innate sense for 
how big
an octave should be. Best not to disturb that with a machine if it's 
already good.

After she's done "brute" octaves for a few days, show her the tenth test,
and then the internal sixth test for the bass, to check her work. And
of course lay on plenty of praise when she does something well.

I think that the best introduction to the temperament is to work from 
simple to
complex. While she's working on octaves and unisons (with an emphasis on 
making
the pin move only a small distance -- show her various hammer techniques to
achieve this --) you can get started with the idea of the Pythagorean 
comma,
by explaining that fractions based on 1/3 (like perfect fifths) and 
those based
on 1/2 (like octaves) can never exactly meet. i.e. 1/3 as a repeating 
decimal,
.333333333333 etc. And that if one tunes fifths pure all the way around the
circle, one ends up --- sharp! Pythagorean comma! It's fun to know a fancy
term.

Then you could set her to tune fifths and fourths beatless, by using a mute
in the top note, so she's only got one string to tune. And then take the
mute out, to give her the sense of how far off equal temperament a
beatless fifth is -- and have her notice that the fourth is further off.

And you could set her to tune the string she has just changed back to
match the others, which is good practice at small motions.

She could then go through a simple fifths-and-fourths sequence all around
the circle of fifths, tuning beatless, to prove the Pythagorean comma for
herself. Then through the same sequence, but guessing at the amount of
shrinkage for the fifths and expansion for the fourths needed to come
out even at the end. And then one can introduce the idea of splitting
the error evenly twelve ways, like a family feud. Make sure nobody's
unhappier than anybody else, even if no one is completely happy.

Once she is pretty adept at that, she can tune a piano to sound pretty
good, with a minimum of fancy tests and elaborate sequences. If she
wants more, then she'd be in a position to be shown a temperament
sequence which uses thirds and sixths, progressing beat rates, etc.

This sequence of learning is very close to what Ted Sambell showed
us at the George Brown course. It seemed an extremely
elegant approach to me at the time -- and it worked.

Regards,
Susan Kline

P.S. Advise her when practicing to use many but short sessions. The
first five minutes are golden. It takes time to build up an attention
span, and it's better not to let her feel bad about getting tired.
Anyone would. Ten or fifteen minutes at a stretch, then do something
to freshen her mind. Then another ten or fifteen minutes. It's good
advice for beginning piano students as well.


Tom Gorley wrote:
> The 50 year old daughter of a former client wants to dabble with piano 
> tuning. She doesn't want to go into business, just learn something 
> new. She wants to get a middle-of-the-road hammer.  Does anyone have 
> an opinion on a basic ETD for her?
> *
> *
> *   *Tom Gorley
>> Registered Piano Technician    
>> *      *(650) 948-9522
>
>
>
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