Unisons - how clean?

[Farrell]

I think most unisons should be pretty clean: No rolling wa-wa-s. Not even a
slow one. BUT I certainly observe that many pianos, especially older and
lower quality, while you may leave with no identifiable wa-wa-s, not even
slow ones, the unisons are not clear, but rather many will be garbled. I
tuned three pianos today, a 1960s Kohler & Campbell spinet (yuk!), a 1960s
Baldwin spinet (double yuk! - worst one I ever tuned), and a 1914 Lester
upright (very well preserved, all original, but unfortunately, still 86
years old). I'm not sure that there was one set of unisons in all three
pianos that I would call real nice and clean (like I can get on most all
unisons on my 7 year old Boston grand - or any other good piano in good
condition).

I have made posts in the past about why does it take me two hours to tune a
piano. Well, my time is down to about 60 or 75 minutes on most pianos, some
longer, some actually shorter. Many pianos I will do two passes on in this
time frame. I think the biggest difference is that I don't labor about on
pianos that will just not tune cleanly. In fact, I generall tune a good
piano more quickly than a poor quality/worn out piano (and I have much
higher expectations for the good piano). I think I'm finally getting the
feel for when a piano sounds bad - whether the cause is me or the piano.

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Woodrow, John (Parramatta)" <John.Woodrow@pil.com.au>
To: "'Pianotech List'" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 3:01 AM
Subject: Unisons - how clean?


> List,
> Situation: A home tuning, on an average quality upright, aiming to be
> completed in 1 hour.  Piano tuned every 12 months.
>
> We probably mostly agree that the goal should be to tune razor sharp
perfect
> unisons.  I say mostly because I have seen it mentioned here than some
> believe that unisons should not be razor sharp but have some 'depth'.
> Anyhow, leaving that debate to one side, for the home tuning situation
> described, I am interested in what others consider to be a definition of
> acceptable unisons.
>
> Do you consider anything less than perfect unisons unacceptable, or do you
> consider that while perfection is the goal, the situation, cost and time
> dictates that something less than concert level perfection is acceptable
> from a customer perspective.  If less than perfect is acceptable, how
would
> you define that standard?
>
> This is not a customer problem, just evaluating my own standards.
> Appreciate opinions.
>
> Regards,
> John Woodrow ICPTG
>
>