Hi Don- Well, so much depends on so many details. I get a lot of pianos with 8 to 12 cent seasonal drift at the end of the long bridge. Cybertuner in pitch raise mode and hard test blows often get good results on pianos like this, doing one pass and octave checks. I agree that if the string or unison are very close I ease up unless the string won't move. Don't you find the friction or degree of bearing also has something to do with this? For example, I tune a Mason and Hamlin BB with very extreme angles in the capo sections. The high treble stays in tune forever as long as the climate is stable. But if something does need to be tuned there, it requires both heavy blows and extreme tuning pin movements to get it to move. On this piano I recently had a string break in the top octave while I was _lowering_ tension. Having to change such a steep angle was clearly stressful to the string after months or years of flexing over the bar. On this piano I had many complaints of tuning instability in the high treble, finally realizing the teacher was practicing early in the morning before the heat came on, and this was when it was out of tune. Ed Hi Ed, If soft blow tuning won't produce stable results then you probably attempting to pitch correct the piano rather than tune it. At 02:13 PM 10/30/2005 -0500, you wrote: >Reading Stephen Birkett's posts on friction free bearings has led me to the conclusion there is no substitute for strong test blows to produce a stable tuning on a modern piano. How strong will depend on how high the friction is in the bearing points. (I don't think Stephen said this, this is my conclusion after thinking about the difference between hypothetical friction free bearings and real pianos.) > >I don't mean there is no value to soft, intuitive tuning, but that ultimately, that isn't enough to be sure. > >Note that although Mr. Troost tunes with soft blows, he concludes by putting on ear protection and pounding all 88 keys, then checking and correcting. > >Ed Sutton Regards, Don Rose, B.Mus., A.M.U.S., A.MUS., R.P.T. Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat mailto:pianotuna@yahoo.com http://us.geocities.com/drpt1948/ 3004 Grant Rd. REGINA, SK, S4S 5G7 306-352-3620 or 1-888-29t-uner
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