pitch raising

[Brian Holden]

Bill  Thanks for your comments.  I have printed off this page and put it
with a copy of my article.  I will study your notes carefully when I get
time.  No doubt, I will probably amend my article accordingly!  But that's
O.K. because that's what the exchanging of ideas is all about.  Cheers,
Brian

-----Original Message-----
From: Billbrpt@AOL.COM <Billbrpt@AOL.COM>
To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: Tuesday, 11 January 2000 19:01
Subject: Re: pitch raising


>In a message dated 1/10/00 7:14:57 PM Pacific Standard Time,
>bholden@wave.co.nz (Brian Holden) writes:
>
><< Any piano if at all possible should be tuned to concert pitch (snip)>>
>
>Thanks for posting your essay on pitch raising, Brian.  It was very good
>writing and very thorough in its treatment.  It is good enough to be
>published in the Journal, you might try submitting it.
>
>I agree most of all with your idea of not completely (and thus too severely
>raising the pitch so that you really are tuning 33% higher than the piano
is
>flat).  If this were a hard and fast rule, sometimes the tuner would be
>tuning as much as 1/2 step sharp and that is neither necessary, nor would
the
>string settle back that far and it would be much more at risk to break a
>string.  When a piano is beyond 50 cents flat, it is better just to bring
>each string up to standard pitch first, then on the second pass, do the
pitch
>raise calculation then.  The 3rd pass should be a breeze.
>
>The way I remember George Defebaugh describe pitch raise was very much to
the
>point and succinct.  Tune the initial pitch slightly sharp (1 beat sharp
for
>every 3 beats flat).  Tune all the way up in octaves.  (Jim Coleman showed
>how he tuned up in whole steps and also demonstrated a hammer technique
which
>I have used ever since.  I still like and use Jim's style of whole step
>tuning.  It is far less stressful and it does lay on the new tension more
>evenly [whether that does any good or not, I don't know]).
>
>Leave beats between your octaves as you tune.  The more the pitch change,
the
>more beats.  One good way is to have the whole piano strip muted, do this
>very quickly and roughly to the middle strings only, then repeat the
>procedure, tightening up your tolerances a bit but still leaving beats in
the
>octaves.  The key to getting the pitch raise done in under 30 minutes is to
>keep moving.  You don't have to get it perfect yet, you don't even want to.
>
>This will leave your piano in a state where a fine tuning with good
stability
>can be on the piano.  If it is more than 20 cents flat or even less in a
>concert tuning situation, it is nearly impossible to arrive at a stable
>tuning even with two passes.  You will inevitably find strings that did not
>render well.  If you give them a good, hard test blow, they will sink down
>sometimes as low or lower than where you first started.  This is especially
>true of the high treble.
>
>You have the choice of getting it stable now or later.  Yes, there are
times
>when I will "hot dog" a 30 cent low piano up to pitch in only two passes
>because of whatever circumstances there may be but I would only be
deceiving
>myself if I thought that it was a really good, fine tuning.  It would not
be
>but then again, it may well be good enough for the circumstances, all of
>which have been covered on the List.
>
>I think of pitch raises as golfers do a course.  A par one, two or three
and
>possibly even more.  A hole in one is a rare event.  A concert tuning is
>almost always at least a par three.  When I prepared the piano for the
>Temperament Festival in Providence, I tuned the piano so many times over
the
>week, I really couldn't say how many it was but I still never did get it
>absolutely perfect.  I would certainly never have tried to present it with
>just one pass.
>
>Now that I use an SAT with custom made programs to tune most of my pianos,
I
>have found something that works well for those pianos that are increasingly
>flat as you go higher up the scale.  Those notes are flatter than your
>starting note and they are to be tuned correctly, they must be tuned 33%
>higher than the actual program which can easily be in the 20-30 cent range
in
>the high treble and as much as 50-75 cents for the last few notes in
certain
>circumstances.  To get these to hold, you really have to push the pitch.
>
>Starting in my low tenor with a selected offset (or even none), I add 2
cents
>at every F and every C.  If things are really flat by the time I get to F6
I
>add 4 cents there and to C7 and to F7.  Sometimes I have made bigger leaps
>sooner and even bigger later.  But I think 50 cents offset ought to be the
>absolute high limit that one would put in the program.  Many, many times I
>have tuned the 7th octave 20 to 30 cents sharp of standard and still found
it
>way too flat on the next pass.  Sometimes, repeating only a small section
of
>the piano that was miscalculated is necessary.
>
>Pitch changes are a regular part of regular piano service.  They should be
>seen as a way to make the piano better and to earn more money.
>
>Bill Bremmer RPT
>Madison, Wisconsin
>