Tuning frequency (long)

[Allen Wright]

        Reply to:   RE>Tuning frequency (long)

Avery - 

Warner Concert Hall here has two "D"s which I maintain. The more preferred of the two pianos gets probably 80% of the playing time. The hall is used constantly during the year - probably on average three or four piano recitals a week, recitals involving the piano as accompanist, countless studio classes, and also occasional master classes . Way too much usage, in other words, in an ideal world. 

I'm given all of Wednesday morning, and one hour every Friday afternoon as my regular, "carved-in-stone" tuning times. In addition to those times I'm given 90 minutes or so before any faculty or guest or Honors recital, and some time as well before senior piano recitals. Also some time early Saturday and Sunday mornings if there is going to be much piano usage on those days. I don't usually need every minute of those times, but the frequency of visits with the pianos IS necessary, to keep them in consistently good tune and voice. We average somewhere around 450 recitals a year between mostly three halls, to put it in perspective.

One of the many things that I find incredibly useful about Reyburn Cybertuner [as a side-bar: this not a posting about RCT per se] is that I can get a really quick fix on how much individual notes have slipped, whether one section of the piano has changed and how much, and how one piano is in relation to the other. Not that these things can't be determined by ear, of course - but it's infinitely quicker and easier with RCT. I use an average of the two pianos curves to tune them both, so that if they're both in tune with RCT I don't even have to play them together to know that they're in tune with each other. 

As you know I'm sure, keeping concert pianos in tune is quite a different matter than "tuning" an entire piano. When humidity conditions are stable, usually I'm just nudging individual strings back into place and not doing global tuning of the entire piano. (Once again, I love how much easier RCT makes the kind of intelligent discretion we have to use in this kind situation - it's so much quicker to see which string of a unison is out, for example, and in which direction). You reach the point where you know how much discrepancy can be tolerated before it becomes necessary to move a string - stability being the most crucial part of concert work, I quickly learned to avoid making any changes I didn't need to make! Right now, for example, my concert instrument has drifted down two cents the last couple of weeks, but since there's more than usual activity going on I've decided to wait awhile before I bring it back up. If there were a bassoon recital I might have to reconsider that! 

If I have only a few pins to actually move, it gives me more time to spend on voicing (which is a constant requirement for pianos played this much) or regulation (which is more of a periodic thing done in response to humidity changes. Fortunately this hall is pretty stable in that department - a little drier on average in the winter, a bit wetter in the summer, but nothing serious.

For all these reasons I'm hard pressed to say how often I "tune" the pianos when people ask. It's such a fluid sort of situation and definition. But I hope that this gives you one hopefully useful perspective. One thing's for sure - everyone works in a different situation and has to respond flexibly to what's required. 

I seem to have enough time here with the pianos to just keep ahead of the curve (or at least only temporarily behind it! If anyone feels constantly behind, and having to do lots of serious tuning right before recitals, I would suggest that they aren't being given enough time in the hall.

regards,      

Allen Wright 
Oberlin