Back length tuning

[Ric Brekne]

Hi again folks.

Thanks for the replies guys.  The reason I ask is that I ran into a 
method for doing this that seemed rather brutal to me, and was curious 
to see if anyone had run into it.  The fellow called it <<flexi 
tuning>>.  On grands he would align his tuning hammer so that it ran as 
close to parallell to the strings as he could, pull up the tension on 
the string and then literally bang (very hard) on the end of the tuning 
hammer so as to rather violently bend the pin towards the speaking 
length of the string.  This would lower the string tension without 
turning the pin the logic went, and thus lowering the tension also 
(presumably) on the backlength.  Then he would re-tune the speaking length.

All this strikes me as a bit odd really.  I suppose that given the 
friction of the bridge pins, there might be some degree of difference 
between tension for and aft of the bridge without affecting tuning 
stability, but I have a hard time imagining very much.  I have dabbled a 
bit in <<tuning>> the back scale by using a string hook. I'd check the 
pitch of the backlength before and after, and then again after tuning 
the speaking length and never found I could get the back length to stay 
where I tried to tune it.  I cant say I really got into the whole 
process much as it just seemed that with good basic tuning technique the 
back length tension should take care of itself.

I guess I will have to try this out a bit more given some of the 
comments about clarity in the high treble.  That said, I think I feel 
another one of those itches behind my ear coming on :)

Cheers
RicB