[CAUT] Adams 1/4 tone sharp piano

[Wolfley, Eric (wolfleel)]

Since I started this thread, I'll summarize a bit here. Aside from the added labor, the major concern with tuning a piano 1/4 tone sharp seems to be that there might be some short-term or long-term damage to the instrument. From what I can gather, plate breakage is a minor concern. The over-designed strength of the plate should easily take the added tension. There was a lawsuit here in Cincinnati a number of years back involving a pitch-raise and a broken plate and I remember that Jim Ellis contributed some data involving the strength of the plate and how it was extremely remote that overpulling could break the plate. Jim, if you're reading this and want to set the record straight we'd appreciate it. String breakage was also a concern, and having now pulled the piano up to pitch it doesn't seem to be a problem. The piano I tuned is a 40 year old Baldwin M with the original strings (some spliced in the high treble) and there was no breakage. The greatest concern from those who know was that the thin wound bass strings would be dangerously close to breaking. Breakage here could be a problem on some pianos but obviously wasn't a problem on my Baldwin. Long-term damage to the wire and loss of tonal quality from overstretching was also mentioned as a concern. I must say that it would be hard to tell from listening to my Baldwin because it didn't sound too great to begin with but if I notice any degrading (or improvement) of the sound I'll let everybody know.

It took approx. 2.5 hours of work to get the piano to hold at +50 cents. Two quick but careful fast passes and one careful one. The piano has those tight, jumpy Baldwin pins. I didn't overpull because I just didn't want to tempt fate.

I wonder what piano they used at Lincoln Center when the work premiered. Being paid a salary by the state, I can afford to experiment and do the extra work but as a private gig I would charge a pretty hefty fee especially since the piano will have to be brought back down to normal pitch afterwards.

Alan, in answer to your question about how sharp I would tune I would say 50 cents! It wouldn't make any sense to de-tune more...a semitone is just a transposition. Any less or more than a quarter-tone (sharp or flat) would diminish the effect.

I also want to say here that I don't mind doing this kind of work. It was an interesting experiment and has quite a dramatic musical effect.

Eric Wolfley, RPT
Head Piano Technician
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
University of Cincinnati

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of reggaepass at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 12:16 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Adams 1/4 tone sharp piano

Hi Eric and List,

  While we are on the subject of tuning sharp, does anyone out there 
have any general guidelines as to how far sharp they will tune? Of 
course, different pianos are scaled differently, but composers and 
performers alike need to know, as a matter of practical performance 
practice, what is feasible.

 Thanks in advance for input on this,

 Alan Eder, RPT

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Wolfley, Eric (wolfleel) <WOLFLEEL at ucmail.uc.edu>
 To: caut at ptg.org
 Sent: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:32:22 -0500
 Subject: [CAUT] Adams 1/4 tone sharp piano

 Hi All,

  I've just had a request to tune a piano ¼ tone sharp for a John Adams 
piece for rehearsals and concert in the next weeks. Can anyone who has 
done this before give me some idea of what I'm in for besides the 
destabilization factor. I'm going to use a Baldwin M we usually let 
people use for prepared piano stuff.

 Thanks,

 Eric

 Eric Wolfley, RPT

 Head Piano Technician

 Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

 University of Cincinnati