No tuning is rock-solid, as much as the most confident of us
would like to think they are. Many recording studios tune once
a month. At many concerts, a tuner comes out during
intermission to touch-up unisons. I just now did a freebie
touch-up for a client whose piano I tuned a month ago. If she
just played Debussy all the time, it probably wouldn't have
needed it, but she plays rock, gospel, and jazz, and quite
forcefully, on a piano that has very hard hammers. But she
still wonders what's wrong with the piano when a few unisons
have drifted after a month.
I get the impression that the general piano-owning public
thinks a tuning should stay perfectly locked-in for about a
year. But they just don't. Yes, there are those old pianos
that stay almost rock-solid for 5 or 10 years, but they're
one-in-a-hundred. As previous PTG brochures on tuning have
pointed out, we're lucky pianos stay in tune as long as they do,
with their essentially 18th century technology, and their 12 to
20 tons of tension on the plate and each string under 75 - 150
lbs. of tension. Other (non-fixed pitch) instruments are tuned
about every time they're played.
I've often tuned pianos where, as I'm packing up my tools,
the customer tries a few notes, and I can hear a unison or two
that has already drifted. This is usually when a pitch raise
has just been carried out, but not always. I'm afraid stability
is an elusive goal, but we try our best.
--David Nereson, RPT
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC