<HTML>List, Every piano is different:  and elderly upright with cedar shanks wi= ll certainly get more gentle treatment from me than a new Asian piano. &nbsp= ;Some of the new pianos I tune in-store can be knocked a whole step south in= the killer octave-high treble range.  Worse yet, when I do "free" tuni= ngs, I sometimes follow up "tooners" who have done the floor tuning.  T= hey have no clue how to put stability into an instrument.   First thing I do on a never-been tuned or "tooned" once piano?  Bea= t on it chromatically from the treble break to C-88 and back down BEFORE I E= VER LAY HAMMER TO PIN.  This section is by far the easiest to knock out= of whack.   Then I can start the pitch raise.  Is this effective with new pianos?  When I do an in-home tun= ing of a piano that I've prepped in the store, unless there are severe envir= onmental factors involved, the piano is usually well on it's way to stabilit= y.   Would I do that with an old Knabe Upright?  Not unless I wanted to = spend a good chunk of my day replacing hammer shanks and other action parts. Test blows should indeed be firm enough to make certain the the string i= s stable.  Most effective for me is a pretty firm test blow followed in= rapid succession by a light listening blow that allows me to hear the beati= ng, whining, or lack thereof. Just my two cents, Dave Stahl In a message dated 8/19/03 9:34:51 AM Pacific Daylight Time, davidlovepi= anos@earthlink.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-= LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">No, the string wasn't prope= rly settled before the test blow.  The point was that it doesn't require an "extremely hard test blow", as stated in the original post, to do that.  Firm blows while manipulating the pin w= ith proper hammer technique will accomplish dependable stability (even throu= gh a Rachmaninov performance).  Extremely hard test blows can actually= drive the pitch sharp, at least temporarily.  If you are strip muting the= piano and come back to tune unisons later, it can slip back flat with subseque= nt playing and you will end up pulling your unisons to a note which is flat (another reason to tune unisons as you go).  In that way, it would = be counterproductive (re another post).  This is not to mention the we= ar and tear on your ears, hands, wrists, fingers, etc., that extremely hard tes= t blows deliver over time.  Many people do tune successfully with ext= remely hard test blows, I just think it's unnecessary.    </FONT= ></BLOCKQUOTE> </HTML>