Practical pitch changing

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 8/18/00 10:19:55 PM Central Daylight Time, 
btrout@desupernet.net (Brian Trout) writes:

<< And
 although the tunings were not what I would have liked them to have been,
 (anything less than concert level bothers me), they were quite good all
 things considered.
 
 I just wondered if anyone else uses or has used a similar method.? >>

This was actually good technique under the circumstances, Brian.  When I 
first heard this idea described many years ago, it was called "blind tuning". 
 I am impressed with your statement that anything less than concert level 
bothers you, otherwise I might not think very highly of this idea.  It is, 
after all, taking a risk.  You could very easily end up even more out of tune 
than you were to begin with, then where would you be?

Having offered that caveat, this technique can save you time when you need it 
most.  I use it sometimes on an ordinary household tuning when, after my 
initial rough tuning, I find that the overshoot I did was inadequate.  If I 
am running out of time to do another whole pitch raise tuning of the entire 
treble section, for example, I may do what you described.  Sometimes, I do 
this on individual notes which for whatever reason, end up way flat after the 
initial pitch raise.

I always adhere to the idea that you can't really tune a piano with a fine 
and stable tuning unless the piano is already reasonably well in tune, at 
pitch and already good enough to play on.  Where I live, the humidity always 
runs in a continuous cycle from very high to very low, year after year.  The 
climate is much the same where you live and is for much of the US and Canada. 
 Those pianos you tuned in August (so that they could have something workable 
to start the scholastic year) will start going out of tune by October.  
They'll really need tuning again by Christmastime (the end of the semester).  
If left alone, they will be just as out of tune as they were when you saw 
them by January, only in the opposite direction. 

It's a fact of life.  In order to cope with such unstoppable forces, you have 
to accept the idea that just about every tuning you do will be a pitch change 
tuning.  Whichever methods you use to get the piano into a state that is 
ready to accept a fine tuning is not as important as accepting the fact that 
you must do it to be a successful technician.

I learned this some 21 years ago at the Annual Convention in Minneapolis from 
the late George Defebaugh RPT who taught a class along with Jim Coleman RPT.  
Part of the presentation was called "Speed and Accuracy".  He showed how to 
do a 20 cent pitch raise on a Yamaha console in well under 10 minutes.  After 
that initial rough tuning, the piano was ready to accept a fine tuning which 
would hold.

I hear less experienced technicians complain all the time about how the piano 
"just does not stay where I put it".  I'm afraid that most of the time, it's 
not the technician's fault.  That person is simply expecting the piano do 
what it will never do.  George emphasized when he taught, "You can tune a 
piano a lot quicker and easier twice than you can fight with it once".  When 
I see someone who writes that an SAT was programmed and the tuning was begun 
on note A0 and it took 3 hours to get to the other end, I can only shake my 
head and pity the poor person who is going about tuning in completely the 
wrong way.

Brian, learn from your own experience.  Practice doing your rough tunings the 
way you did your "blind tuning".  Try to get the string on pitch with just 
one stroke of the tuning hammer.  Of course you will not always succeed but 
one big stroke followed by one or two more quick, correcting strokes will 
mean that you will have literally only spent a few seconds on the string.  It 
doesn't take long to get through the entire piano when you only spend a few 
seconds on each string.

During this period of the year when I have to do a lot of pitch lowering, I 
often can get the string to jump down to the pitch I want just by placing the 
tuning hammer on the pin.  With a motion that has some counterclockwise 
momentum, I fling the hammer onto the pin and often I get my pitch just like 
that.  I'm already on the next pin before an entire second has elapsed.

You can go up to any piano that I tune anywhere at anytime, play it hard, 
give it random test blows and check intervals and octaves for correctness and 
you'll find that each and every one meets very high standards.  I usually 
spend less than an hour tuning, the usual time is 45 minutes and I can often 
be done in about 30 minutes on a good piano which is well kept.  I never 
expect the piano to be on pitch and it usually isn't.  I always tune the 
piano at least twice through completely, I would say 99.9% of the time (yes, 
999 out of 1000 pianos).  It just wouldn't meet my own personal standards if 
I didn't.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin