A Case Study

[Jon Page]

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I have, on occasion, jammed a small piece of felt in between the bridge=
 bevel
and the bass string core to alleviate the harsh accompaniment.

Jon Page

At 06:50 PM 02/12/2000 -0900, you wrote:
>Richard ,
>Stick to your guns !
>This brings up a question that has always been a gnawing in the recesses of
>my mind. To make a remedy could one measure the strings to each side for
>their inharmonisity then find out which string was the worst and change the
>winding length to try to match the two strings. Or change one to match the
>other?
>One trick that you can use in a pinch is to place a rubber mute between the
>worst string and its neighbor above or below the windings. This will
>somewhat deaden that note but will also cut the mismatch of the upper
>partials.
>Joe Goss
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Richard Brekne <richardb@c2i.net>
>To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
>Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2000 10:47 AM
>Subject: A Case Study
>
>
>> Yesterday I had an experience I just had to share with you all. We've
>> been on about this buisness of when to say no several times lately and
>> this relates to that.
>>
>> I was on my way home late afternoon when my mobil (cellular) rang. A
>> local sound studio was to have a recording with one of the national TV
>> stations later that evening and needed the piano tuned.
>>
>> Just a week earlier I had been in there with some players from the
>> Conservatory and a visiting ragtime pianist from England. A nice brand
>> new Yamaha U1 had been rented for the occasion and I tuned it for the
>> session. I had suggested earlier on to the fellow responsible for
>> arranging the session that he rent at least this much quality as I knew
>> this particular studio had no piano of their own and usually had on loan
>> some beater.
>>
>> Indeed this was the case last week, a 25 year old 110 R=F8sler (Czech,
>> petrof variant). Beat to sh--, horrible bass, unbelievable wear on the
>> Hammers.. etc. etc. ad absurdum. Now this sound studio has Mercedes
>> solutions when it comes to almost everything, except the piano, and I
>> have been on about this with them for over a year now, trying patiently
>> to inform them that it was very bad tactics to keep using wrecks for
>> pianos.
>>
>> Anyways, so I go in yesterday for this "very important" recording
>> session, and sure enough they are going to use this R=F8sler. I just=
 shook
>> my head, tried once again to tell the guy how idiotic this was, but
>> proceeded to tune the piano as best as was possible. I must say I did
>> quite a fine job of it as well... as far as was possible in anycase.
>>
>> As I said... the bass on this piano was horrible... several bad string
>> pars.. and in particular C2 which was so far out of wack that no matter
>> what you did it sounded both horribly flat and horribly sharp at the
>> same time. Lets put it this way... if you tuned C2-C3 as a 2:1 ,, the
>> 4:2 was beating at around 6 bps. I kid you not. Lets not even think
>> about the higher coincidents yet.  Tuning as a 4:2  was appropriate for
>> keeping 3rds and 10ths in line with neighbors, but yeilded the most
>> ridiculous blending of sounding both sharp and flat at the same time.
>> Tuning to a higher coincedent just sounded awfully awfully flat.. and
>> ruined the progression of 3rds and 10ths... Nothing to do... I ended up
>> with something between a 4:2 and a 2:1 so that my 3rds and 10ths were
>> acceptable, and the octave sounded least bad otherwise.
>>
>> After nearly two hours of trying to make this thing sound at least
>> something like a piano, I finally called it a nite and after one more
>> round of this time a bit more firm admonishing about the shamefullness
>> of putting this thing in front of serious musicians, I went home.
>>
>> Two hours later this fellow has the gaul to call me (now nearly 8PM) and
>> says the piano is out of tune in the bass and wants me to come back (for
>> free cuz it was obviously my fault) to fix it. He went on to inform me
>> that he noticed it right away after I had left and wanted to know if I
>> thought the piano was in tune when I left. I replied with...
>>
>> "wait a second... you say you noticed this 2 hours ago, on the evening
>> of a recording session, and you wait til now to call me ????? ".  I also
>> informed him in no so uncertain terms that the piano was well tuned for
>> what it was, and that it was high time he realized that as long as he
>> insisted on using such garbage he should expect less then satisfactory
>> sound, and that he needed to wake up and buy himself a decent instrument
>> appropriate to his needs and stop calling piano techs at nite with
>> accusations and tales of catastrophy.  In short... I simply refused to
>> go back.
>>
>> A bit of background before you comment... I am one of 5 different tuners
>> this guy has done basically the same with. I have talked with the others
>> and they are of same mind, that they are sick and tired of this fellow,
>> and wont have anything more to do with him. All have said to him for
>> some time now, that he needs a decent piano for his kinda work and he
>> always shines us on about it. And all of us have heard comments from him
>> about the "poor quality of piano technicians" here in western Norway.
>> Also one last thing.. this is the only complaint I personally have had
>> in the last 5 years.
>>
>> So you tell me.... time to draw the line or what ??
>>
>> --
>> Richard Brekne
>> Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
>> Bergen, Norway
>>
>>
>>
>>
>=20
Jon Page,   piano technician
Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass.
mailto:jonpage@mediaone.net
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