Strip Muting/unisons

[Roger C Hayden]

I like strip muting and whole step tuning, too.  I discovered it while
doing time/motion studies on the fastest method of tuning (for me).  The
stop watch told me what was quicker.  
Strip muting the whole piano, leaving the middle string singing, and then
tuning all them I found quick.

Then strip muting again every other unison, leaving the middle string and
one outside (out of tune) string singing let me set these strings in
next, doing them by whole steps, because getting to the end of several
short trips seems psychologically so much easier than one long tedious
trip.  

Then I pull the strip out and tune the other set of outside strings,
again working in whole steps.  I found this much faster, because I can
strip mute a whole piano in under two minutes, which doesn't compare with
handling a rubber mute upwards of 200 times.

And I agree that whole steps seem to keep the ear fresher, and when in
the treble undampered strings, a note that continues to sustain a whole
step away from where you are now tuning doesn't seem to interfere as
much.

The psychological element of whole step tuning is critical.  I, too
average five tunings a day, have done seven tunings many times, and a
couple of days, ten.  Chromatic scales are very intense to listen to.  Ed
Pettingill, who taught me much twenty years ago, found tuning to be very
nerve racking.  I do not.  Ed used rubber mutes and chromatic sequencing.
(Of course he's also a violist.)

Roger Hayden, RPT