I've thought about leaving the piano above pitch...maybe +5 cents. Seems like a good idea on the seldom tuned piano...speaking of which I'll leave my own piano a little sharp next time...;-] David I. ----- Original message ----------------------------------------> From: Dave Nereson <davner@kaosol.net> To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org> Received: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 00:45:50 -0700 Subject: Re: Pitch Raising Techniques >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Matthew Todd" <toddpianoworks@yahoo.com> >To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org> >Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 9:15 PM >Subject: Pitch Raising Techniques > > Can some of you tell me what pitch raising techniques work the best for >you?? >> Thanks! > For me, it's faster to raise pitch without the ETA (ETD). I overshoot >between 20 and 50%, depending on the piano. The amount of overshoot is >determined partly by an intuitive guess. If it's a new piano that I suspect >has only had one or two tunings in the store, and it's two beats flat at A >49, I'll pitch-raise it to one beat sharp (50%). And if it's 7 beats flat, >I'll still overshoot by 3 or 4 beats, which is more than an ETD might do, >but I know it's going to stretch and go flat anyway, plus most people let >'em go too long, so I might as well leave it a bit sharp. > But on an older piano, I don't overshoot as much because the strings are >already stretched, and some of 'em might break, so if it's, say, 6 beats >flat, I'll pitch raise it to 2 beats sharp (about 30%) at A 49. > If the piano is really old (before 1900), or if I sense or observe that >the piano seems brittle, unlikely to hold a tuning at a higher tension, or >has a propensity to break strings, or if I see that strings have been >replaced or spliced, I'll not pitch-raise it above A=440, and if it's really >flat (1/2-step or more), I'll advise the owner that it may not be advisable >to bring it up to standard pitch. > There are exceptions. If I think it was up to pitch at some point not >too long ago, sometimes I'll tighten plate screws and/or seat bridge pins to >jostle the strings a bit at their bearing points, then take the pitch-raise >risk. > I strip mute the piano, tune the temperament using one octave and 4ths >and 5ths -- no other checks -- then do all the octaves up, right-hand >unisons coming down, left-hand unisons going back up, then the bass octaves, >then their unisons. That's the fastest way for me. I only do "unisons as >you go" for the final tuning. I've tried doing "unisons as you go" on a >pitch raise and don't find it to be any more stable than my faster method, >plus I don't have to keep leap-frogging mutes. > --David Nereson, RPT >_______________________________________________ >pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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