hi tuners

[Barb Barasa]

In addition to all the books everyone will recommend (and they are more up
on this than I), I would highly recommend finding someone who not only tunes
extremely well but is able to explain the physics, etc., of tuning in a way
that you can understand (these two are not always combined in one person!),
and ask for some time with him/her for a demo.  When I tune, if the owner
shows the least bit of interest in what I'm doing, I offer my 5 minute crash
course on "what does it mean to say a piano is 'in tune' " and make it very
clear that it is not a god-given mystical gift -- it is mostly science and
part art ... just like performing surgery.  Your request would just be an
expanded version of this.

I don't think it is necessary to be able to TUNE a piano in order to
understand what needs to be happening for a piano to be IN TUNE.  Proof of
that is that when I finished my training with Fred Tremper and Allan Day, I
knew EXACTLY how the piano had to sound if it was truly in tune, but I still
could not really get a whole piano to sound that way.  (I'm sure they will
attest to that.)  VERY frustrating!  It took LOTS of pianos before I got
good, and lots more before I got excellent.

You are correct to assume that you will not want to learn to tune.  I always
tell people who want me to teach them (usually out of idle curiosity or to
save the cost of having their piano tuned) that I will be happy to do that,
and that I am an excellent teacher, but that they need to understand that it
will take about as much time and energy to learn to tune a piano as it does
to learn to play an instrument well.  I remind them of all the hours playing
scales and struggling to play the right note with the right finger, until
one day ... they can play!  It's like that with tuning ... you have to
struggle with the boring rote stuff for eons until one day it just clicks
and you can tune (usually) without mental anguish.

Wish there were more musicians who wanted to understand this.  I don't think
most of them would know if a piano were REALLY in tune or not, unless it is
REALLY not.

Barb Barasa


>First of all, thanks to all the nice people who gave advice about the
>Steinway 1098. It was very helpful. Everyone agreed that it's hard to tune.
>Beyond that, opinions vary.
>
>Now a simple question for you. I've enjoyed lurking on this list and
>learning stuff about the mechanics of the piano. If I'm interested in
>learning some of the rudiments of tuning pianos, what are the good
>resources for doing that? I do not intend to become a tech or any such
>thing, but would simply be interested in learning the
>acoustics/physics/whatever of tuning, hoping it will improve my
>musicianship a little. Any advice you can give is appreciated.
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>Jim Shanahan * jes30@cornell.edu * 607-255-8058 (voice) * 607-255-7905 (fax)
>   Dept. of Comm., 314 Kennedy Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
>