This may get a bit wordy, so here's the subject:"My first real concert tuning". I'm looking for information, as a lot happened, both good, and questionable, and I need to know more than I do the "next" time this happens. Stephen Nielson and Ovid Young- the artists. Memorial Drive UMC in Houston, the place, seating about 1000 in a huge cathedral celing room, into which were brought the Baldwin L and a KG3 on Thursday night. I went over Friday and raised them about five beats to get them to hold at 440.(They had not been tuned in a year, and were moved from another building on the grounds, across a pea-gravel/cement walk, and up five steps) Saturday went over and tuned them together. (No human humidity machines had been in the room by this time.) Today they played four things at each of three services today, the room being mostly full at each service, and I went back over this afternoon to "touch things up". At first run through, I was very disappointed in how things were. After I watched these two men pound those poor undersized pianos for an hour, I was amazed things were as good as they were. (If I had known how heavy handed they played, I would simply have chickened out and gotten one of the truly good tuners in the city to do it.) I had to restrip the pianos (sorry, I still use strips), and go through both again fully, though I only had to tweak the temperament on a couple notes on the L, and adjust accordingly on the KG3. There were some octaves that were out as much as a couple of beats, except in the top, where both pianos still needed to be pulled up a bit. I heard only one octave tonight that seemed not to hold, and one unison bothered me, both notes on the Kawai. The church's organist said the pianos "sounded fabulous"- for which I was most appreciative. HOWEVER. Several keys stuck tonight on the L. They didn't stick during any of the tunings, even two hours before concert tonight, nor did they stick in any of the three services this morning. Now, the pianists and I all assume major humidity changes to be the culprit with the keys. As with most churches, this place doesn't want to tune regularly, nor have any work done, except when it's "broke". I'd appreciate thoughts regarding, a) the relatively low pitch at start, and instability this morning b) guesses as to how much the humidity might have changed a reasonably stable tuning. c) should I have guessed keys might have stuck, though nothing indicated they would. .I'd even left them a note for the morning with my cell phone # in case anything showed up as problematic. d) billing........ In effect I did four tunings, plus the touch-ups required to tweak things as best I could, and I had get into the action to fix a slipping jack, and reset a hammerline which had become inconsistent over the years. e) These pianos are used as parlor pianos or perhaps in Sunday school as usual fare, not regularly tuned and used "hard". Should I have insisted on tuning them once more (though time wouldn't have allowed it, to bring them more stability, given the starting pitch of about A-435?) No need to make this a public issue, taking up a lot of band width. It's an inexperienced tooner attempting to learn from the unexpected. I'd be glad if a few oldies would be willing just to drop me a bit of a note. I was rather tense through the evening, expecting at any moment strings to break, or notes to simply cease to exist. They really needed 9-footers. Not having same, they attempted to make the little things sound like 9-footers. Thanks les bartlett houston ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
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