In a message dated 98-01-29 18:03:33 EST, you write: << No, I tune the first string as well as I can, and then I tune the other strings to the first. The effect is not uniform, and I've decided that any attempt to compensate may actually result in greater error, if in fact there is error in the first place. >> Dear Jim, What I do about this is to never create any interval, octave or otherwise using a whole unison against a single string. The last thing I do are my middle unisons. (Once again, different and the opposite of what most people do). Everything else in the piano is already done, treble and bass. That way, aurally or electronically, my octaves are always determined with single strings. If there is a general shift downwards, I figure that the whole thing then shifts, like the doppler effect. I do think that sometimes there may be confusion between tuning stability and this phenomenon. Those who insist that using a strip mute will not produce a fine tuning try to "raise the pitch and fine tune at the same time" as George Defebaugh warned could not be done. I've always remembered his teaching and admonition and find that I can easily tune a piano faster twice than I can fight with it once. Anytime you are changing the general pitch of any area of the piano, the pitch of a unison will change as you progress through it and beyond it. The coupled motion phenomenon is very real, though. By doing the test that I mentioned, tuning a solid, clean sounding unison, so that it will at least be aurally acceptible, stopping the ETD pattern, then checking the single string, the single will always roll sharp. Check the unison as a whole again, it will stop the pattern. I have not tried this on very high notes or notes deep in the bass bichords. It does seem to me though that I have noticed this effect while tuning some of the higher bass notes. I was not experimenting, it was just an observation. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC