mutes

[John Formsma]

Yesterday I did 4 out of 5 tunings with two mutes, except I tuned the
temperament octave with a strip mute and one in the bass (after tuning the
unisons in the middle) . It's always amazing how much better a piano sounds
this way. Same tuning style, and same octave stretch as with a strip mute,
but it's just noticeably clearer and much more musical. I think some of it
is that the single mutes (wide ones) are more effective at muting than a
strip mute. So you have less junk to filter out. And the "Virgil effect."

Like you, I tune the treble with pure to near-pure P12s. To my ear, it's
what the piano calls for.

In the past, it has taken me about 1.2 - 1.5 hours to tune this way, but
with these it was an hour or less (except for a Steinway M that had some
falseness). Interesting...not sure why except I spent less time testing in
the high treble and more time listening to the single octave. Virgil is
right - there's really just one right place for the high treble when you
have the lower octaves done right.

I also didn't have to correct as many unisons as with a strip mute.

JF

On 3/2/07, RicB <ricb at pianostemmer.no> wrote:
>
> I think the "point" is more along the lines of different strokes for
> different folks.  What you find works best by no means constitutes whats
> best for anyone else.  I personally find the strip muting method to be
> less dependable in terms of hitting and staying on my target.  I end up
> having to go back and adjust the middle string again anyways.  Tuning
> unisons as I go yields me better results and I have no problems
> whatsoever listening to my tuning as I go.  I dont find it easier to
> check for <<correct>> (read intended) octave check using a strip...
> quite the opposite.
>
> But thats just me. What works for me is what I should do.  My comments
> were stimulated by memories of several whom I knew back when I started
> in the states whom insisted that if I didnt use a strip mute I would
> never be able to tune a piano correctly.  A bunch of malarky.  I've
> taken my share of tests and am quite happy with my results.... Just
> tonite I had to do a 440 to 442 pitch change on a 8 month old Hamburg
> C... one hour was all I had before sound check.  After sound check I had
> a couple hours if I needed it.  I sat and just nitpicked with my handy
> dandy Pocket PC helping me make sure all was where I wanted it.  My
> aural checks are for a perfect 12th priority in the treble, adjusting as
> necessary for clean 4:2:1 double octaves, and I have a 6:3 octave basis
> for the base. Tunelab lends itself very nicely as an aid in directly
> confirming these relationships.  Outside of 5 or 6 notes I could have
> left the tuning for the concert... and even then it would have flown
> very nicely.
>
> I'm not boasting here mind you.  I've been at this for nigh on 35 years
> now... and it strikes me that very much of the  "this is the way to do
> it" mentality is just ... well wrong.  There are many ways of skinning
> the proverbial cat.  I admire a good job no matter how its done.  No
> matter at all that I might go about things differently then another guy.
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
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