Steinway vertical

[Bill Ballard]

At 9:12 AM -0400 5/5/98, Frank Cahill wrote:
I tune a Steinway upright ever six months, and it's a tough job.  Does
>anybody have any ideas why these pianos present such a challenge?
>Forget the tight tuning pins, I can handle that. It seems that the
>strings have excessive friction at the various contact points.  Lubing
>strings at v-bar with liquid wrench made very little difference.
>
>Someone suggested that I flagpole the pins up/down to try to get the
>strings settled.  Can't say as I find it any easier.

Flag-poling the pins, as Ken Sloane watched the oldtimer doing, when he
first arrived at Oberlin, has no effect on  string friction. It's simply a
means of altering tension in the first section just off the tuning pin
without turning the pin, (which with stiff pinblock grip is its own can of
worms). I can deal with tight pins, What my hammer technique can't deal
with is high string friction. No lubricant (snake oil or otherwise)  has
ever been able to relieve string friction as I perceive it. (That is, the
inordinate delay between the feeling of wire changing at the tuning pin and
the sound of wire changing at the entrance to the speaking length. I am not
shy about letting up a 1/2 turn on the pressure bar screws (with the
accompanying rough tunings).

DisklaDame has promised to report back to us after the spring tunings on
several Steinway verticals, with fresh observations on what it is in her
technique that makes her feel comfortable tuning them. I look forward to
this, not just for the report on "taming the mule". Any one who knows her
also knows of the evolution of her hammer technique.

Bill Ballard, RPT
New Hampshire Chapter, PTG

"Never try to teach a pig to sing.
It wastes timeand  annoys the pig."
  Sign on the wall of
     a college voice teacher's studio.