[CAUT] Slob tunings that improve by themselves

[Gary Mushlin]

Yes, but nothing that I would admit to...

Dennis Kirk, a prominent PTG member years ago—I'm not sure if he is  
still around—gave a class on how to "mistune" a piano in anticipation  
of a season change. At first, I thought doing something like that was  
not in the best interest of the profession and I would not even  
consider it. Apparently from the lack of response to your inquiry,  
not too many technicians think much of this either. However, after  
much thought and years of experience, I can see that there are  
circumstances where this might be useful. One example might be where  
you are forced to tune a piano just before the big midwest season  
change from winter to summer, and you know it will not be tuned again  
for another year, or at least several months. This piano is in a  
situation where you are just trying to keep the piano from sounding  
bad, and  avoid major complaints after the season change. While I  
don't intentionally mistune the piano, I just don't bring it up all  
the way, leaving some areas flatter than others. I reverse the  
process going from summer to winter.  I know the piano will sound  
better in a month than if I tuned it properly. Also, it helps if the  
piano sounds better than when you started, since the people using it  
will notice an improvement, which is also what I'm trying to accomplish.

I've not tried intentionally using offsets. I wouldn't know how much  
to offset and still have it sound decent enough for the present. I  
figure the way I do it, I'm letting the piano decide. I am still  
leaving the octaves relatively beatless, but stretched more in the  
places where the stretch will decrease after the weather change.  
Admittedly, the way I do it, the piano still doesn't sound good after  
the weather change; it just doesn't sound as bad as it otherwise  
would. I'm amazed how many people cannot notice the beating octaves  
where the biggest change occurs in the piano, unless it is really bad.

I also would not know how to offset unisons. It seems you would  
really have to know the piano to anticipate unisons going out. You  
can accomplish this somewhat with the Scott Jones couplers, but I  
have no situation where I care to use this.

Sincerely,
Gary Mushlin, MME, RPT


On Jun 18, 2007, at 11:03 AM, Michael Jorgensen wrote:

>      Do any of you intentionally mistune pianos using offsets to  
> counteract
> what you anticipate the different registers and strings within a  
> unison will
> do as humidity changes?
>     I believe there is a time a place for everything, including  
> this, and am
> wondering what strategies you are using.
> -Mike Jorgensen