Tuning Stabilty Question

[David Ilvedson]

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Yes.  

David Ilvedson







Original message
From: Robert Finley 
To: 
Received: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 13:26:19 -0400
Subject: Tuning Stabilty Question


I would like to ask your opinion about piano tuning stability.=
 Last weekend we finished our international piano competition in=
 Boston. It began on Wednesday June 22nd. I was the director of=
 the competition and had a lot of administrative work to do.
 
A couple of weekends before the competition I made several visits=
 to the college and tuned four of the practice pianos, because=
 last time in 2003 they were badly out of tune. They hadn't been=
 tuned since January, the beginning of the semester, and I=
 thought I would save our organization some money. 
 
The pianos were very old (looked as if they were from the early=
 1900s), and consisted of two Steinway Bs, a Steinway A, and  a=
 Baldwin Hamilton Studio console.  They didn't seem to have been=
 looked after very well. There were paper clips, pins, dust and=
 other debris inside. Some of the tuning pins were rather loose.=
 The music stand on a Steinway B was broken and in terrible=
 shape. 
 
I used the SAT III to  to tune them. I applied strong blows to=
 equalize the tension in the strings, and lighter listening blows=
 to check the resultant tuning. When I finished each piano, there=
 was a very big improvement, and I could have given a recital on=
 each of them. The notes had a bell like clarity, although the=
 tone of the Baldwin upright was rather mediocre. 
 
During the competition, the practice pianos were in use from 8 am=
 until 11 pm each day by contestants. They practiced such things=
 as the Prokofiev Toccata, Rachmaninoff Etudes, Liszt etc, and=
 they began to go out of tune. The air conditioning in the=
 building cycled on and off during the night and day. They were=
 in quite out of tune by the end of the competition. 
 
My question is, would you typically expect pianos to go out of=
 tune under these circumstances or should they have held their=
 tuning better? I know it is difficult to say without seeing the=
 pianos, but I just wondered what your opinion might be.  I'm not=
 sure what else I could have done to make the pianos hold their=
 tuning longer. I couldn't go in to re-tune them because they=
 were constantly in use by the contestants from morning to late=
 at night. I was also overloaded with work, running the=
 competition, so I wouldn't have had the time anyway. 
 
Thanks for your thoughts and a happy July 4th. 
 
Robert Finley


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