false beats from??

[Ron Nossaman]

> Thanks for the update on bridge pins. What is the "real cause" if it is not
> a loose bridge pin? And would you use CA glue Ron? Or?

It's still almost always a loose bridge pin. If it must be 
addressed, I'll use CA. For the most part, I work around it. I 
mention the problem, the cause, and the most affordable treatment 
(CA) to the owner, and let them decide if they want to pay for it. 
Most don't notice it, or particularly care if they do (considering 
that it will cost something to address), so I do what I can with 
what I have. I ignore it and tune around it as well as I can. What I 
don't do any more, is try to fool myself that I'm fixing anything by 
seating strings and bridge pins, since I've come to realize that I 
was not correcting the root cause, and was most likely doing further 
damage. The fact is that the piano needs something it's not going to 
get, and the equivalence of touching up the x-rays to deny the 
problem isn't going to do either the doctor, or the patient any good 
in the long run.

I realize there are impossible situations, like concert and studio 
work, where SOMETHING must be done to clean up false beats. A 
concert instrument has a very short life at a high performance level 
anyway, so you do whatever you have to do to meet the performance 
requirements at the expense of longevity, and try to correct the 
problem more nearly permanently when the rebuild comes up on the 
wheel. Meanwhile, I see no reason to abuse Mrs Jones' piano trying 
to disguise the symptoms tuning after tuning while denying the 
reality. I understand that most of the technical community 
disagrees, but that's the way I see it.

Ron N