My 10-minute tuning in practice!

[Ken Burton]

            Phil,

            I don't know if you were on PianoTech when I last posted this
tip but I think it's time to share it again.
            Al Jeschke, masterful technician from Calgary, gave me this
"Million Dollar Pitch Raising Tip."
            When you come to a piano that it slightly down in pitch, up to
15 cents flat, go over the flat areas, pulling up one string of each unison.
Place two hands on the tuning hammer and do not strike the keys. Pull the #1
string of each unison just until you feel the pin move. This should just
take you a minute or two.
            Then, proceed to tune normally. You will find that each trichord
you come to will have two flat strings and one sharp string. Bring up a flat
one, then bring down the sharp one and finally bring up the other flat one.
            You will find that the initial work of sharpening loads the
soundboard in anticipation of the extra tension and the pitch will stay
where you put it.
            If you have already starting tuning the piano, unaware that the
treble is flat, simply stop tuning, do the quick raise as described above,
then continue tuning. You'll be amazed!

                        Ken Burton "Doctor Piano" Calgary Alberta
                                   kwburton@cadvision.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Bondi <tito@PhilBondi.com>
To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: Thursday, March 11, 1999 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: My 10-minute tuning in practice!


>Congrats Brian. I've done 2 just this morning in the fashion that you
>mentioned..well almost!..both new pianos..one on the dealer floor and one
in
>the customer's home..The one on the dealer floor was 26.8c flat..I had to
>raise the 5th and 6th octaves twice before the fine tuning..total time:
1Hr.
>20 min.
>
>The one in the customer's home was 11.3c flat..that one was just a quickie
>doing JUST the middle string..I'm sure someone on this list will tell me to
do
>all 3, but what I have found is if I leave the middle string beating pretty

>good against the lower octave, then when I go to do the fine tune, it falls
>into place instead of the unisons 'dragging down' the pitch..this is the
2nd
>time I have tried this with good results..yes, I had a few flat ones in the
>6th octave and had to re-tune 3, but all in all, this quickie PR seems to
work
>for me when the piano is not that bad to begin with.
>
>PRook!
>
>
>