Hello all,
This is my first post as a new member.
I have been tuning my own piano and those of others as a sideline for over 30 years. Yesterday I tuned a fairly new Kawai baby grand that I don't think had been tuned since it left the store or the factory. It had been at the buyer's home for about 9 months. I found it to be about 25 to 40 cents flat overall and even flatter in the top octave. I spent almost 2 hours tuning this piano and even though I felt I was careful to try to set the pins well ( a bit over the pitch to just on with minimal excess pin movement), the strings were still not holding very well after all this attention to detail and after retuning many middle register strings that had fallen.
My question for those with more knowledge and experience in this business is this, is there something I am missing or is it just normal that a piano that hasn't been tuned in a while and is quite flat will need a second tuning almost right away after the first tuning to achieve some stability in the pitch. Or am I screwing up somehow in setting the pins? Is there some advanced technique that I should know about in this situation to improve the end result?
I am open to suggestions since I hate to leave my clients dissatisfied.
Steve

Steve, welcome aboard!



Yes, it's both normal and unavoidable. When a piano is that much below pitch you'd have to perform a 'pitch raise', which is basically 1) one or more rough tunings to get the strings to hover close to where they are supposed to stay, 2) Then, after that, a fine tuning.

When you get accustomed to the way a piano behaves, you can 'overpull' - that is, aim a little higher than the desired pitch for the first rough tuning, 'cause it will slip down somewhat anyway. Some experienced technicians here can do that very well, almost intuitively. Me myself am getting better at this, on a trial-and-error basis.

The average overpull would be 50% of how flat it is when you start - say, if its 20 cents flat, you'd overpull by 10 cent.

One little word of caution. Overpulling puts stress the piano, so you have to use common sense. A piano 200 cents flat (yes, they are out there!) should not be overpulled by 100 cents, cause that would make the tension rise way to drastically. In those cases, you'd take definitely want to pull it up little by little.

About pin setting, that is an ongoing learning experience for most of us, and pianos behave differently. Still there is some kind of agreement that the average starting point would be to use the tuning lever to pull the string very very slightly above pitch, then turn slightly in the opposite direction and (hopefully) leave it right at pitch, the pin then being left in a neutral, untwisted state.

Hope this helps.

By the way, how come that you have not in 30 years encountered a piano flat enough to trigger off this problem earlier?

Steve:

Welcome aboard!

Since you have been tuning a while and have not experienced this problem before I would say it is unique to the piano or situation.

It could be that the bends in the strings are trying to straighten out or return to the previous position. Or it could be that the combination of the pinblock, pin and rendering points are conspiring against you.

I use different hammer techniques depending on many factors and am always attentive when someone mentions what they do.

When I can’t decide just what is going on and what the best hammer technique is, I try this: From well below pitch, I bring the pitch up with a smooth pull and with the hammer in line with the string. I then put a little CCW force on the pin and give a number of heavy blows. The amount that the string is flat is the amount that it needs to be above pitch when using a smooth pull. But whether I then continue to use a smooth pull and whether I render the string in the same way depends on whether I have a better way or not. It depends on the feel of the pin, etc., but I have a better idea of what is going on.

I just disagree with Upright tooner there, as in fact the idea is that the wire is holding the pin in place, more than leaving it in a neutral state (that only ask to be disturbed to get the relation described above)
the wire refrain the pin to twist back, in fact.

It even works on very old pianos with little pins not very deep in the pinblock.

Feeling the springiness of the pin is the long part of the apprenticing.

Only a light finger on the handle (sorry, not the key) is enough to feel that.
If you twist too much the pin, it slips and you are obliged to charge again. but when well done there is no possibility for the wire to loose tension, nor for the pin to move more.


With a lot of consistency you can leave all the pins in a neutral state and have a piano that slips a very tiny amount approx the same at each pin, but it is heard as more inconsistencies in intervals, (and it takes less than one day)
If you use a real hard blow and the friction is not excessive at the bearing points, you put the pin in that condition, but it is less even than doing it with the tuning lever.

I agree with the PR, of course, the way the tension is installed on the soundboard and in the structure, is also more important than one believe, if not for stability, (PR from A0 to C88 seem to work well enough) for tone reasons (avoiding to twist/stress too much the bridge as this is detrimental to down bearing)

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This exciting new tuning class demonstrates midrange tuning by utilizing a lower C#3-C#4 temperament. Beat rates are slower and every note has 3 or 4 tests. The temperament is scored by RPT Exam standards. Several methods of treble and bass tunings are discussed. See a demonstration of a complete tuning.

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This class is a “bottom to top” lecture and demonstration of the many aspects of piano tuning. Discussed are fundamental physics of musical sounds, the harmonic series, the source of the beats we hear, a solid aural temperament method, octave tuning methods and styles, unison tuning, and tuning stability. Although the class is intended for relative newcomers, it has materials useful to all technicians.

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Without stability, it doesn’t matter how good your tuning sounds, and you need a certain amount of speed to make a living tuning pianos. This class provides tips and techniques to help in both areas.

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This class covers many aspects of the tuning stability problem, especially pertaining to new (or newly restrung) pianos. Tuning technique, proper string seating, pitch raising and other aspects of the technician's work are discussed and demonstrated. Also discussed are the many other factors, which can contribute to tuning instability and the best ways to deal with them.

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What factors affect the stability of my tuning? This class investigates how the case, soundboard, plate, pinblock, strings, scaling, hammer technique, and of course, environment affect stability. Learn techniques to improve tuning stability.

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This class talks about one of the least discussed, most important aspects of tuning. Learn different listening methods, hammer technique, muting methods and tuning for solid, stable and durable unisons. Emphasis will be on listening and result based tuning.

Are you sure the pins are slipping? It is common during a pitch raise for the plate/frame and soundboard to yield somewhat and everything to fall apart.

Fine tuning lever technique is most effective if the piano is on pitch, and you are fine tuning.

O may have not stated things correctly, due to my limited English.

The pin does the same thing when you turn it to raise the pitch and when you lower it : it twist then the bottom move.

But when you untwist the pin, go alittle more than nutral, it grips in the block and the wire refrain it to come up again. If you twist too much then you feel the pin loosing its grip and you have to do the whole shebang (if you want your pins to be settled with consistency.

Yes if the whole system is yet tense and almost tuned then you can only correct the position of the pin without uncharging the whole system. Then I unlock the friction zone by pulling a little on the lever, and I kind of vibrate the pin, twisted, so to only change by a very tiny increment the position of the bottom of the pin.

Doing so the wire is yet at its settled and elongated state so no need to begin with the "uncharging" The term is due to Alfredo , I am looking for another but it is well describing what happens, the pin is charged by the wire tnension and its own springness, and the pinblock is also charged, that raise its resonant frequency and help the tone.

Of course during PR the whole instrument react, but a good unserstanding of the way the tension install can help to tune in one pass coming from a lower pitch than what is accepted.

The PR functions of EDT work well because they charge a lot the system with the overpull.

But the way they propose to install the tension (A0> C88) is not very good for the soundboard , particularely old ones.

Thanks Isaac for confirming that I'm on the right track with my own findings! Everything you say above makes total sense to me, and is in par with my own experience.

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies. Just to clarify, I have often had this type of problem with older pianos with iffy pin blocks, but less often with new pianos as in this case. In fact, I don't know how much slippage has occurred since the client seemed to have somewhat unrealistic expectations for a perfect tuning. I explained that it is normal for there to be a need for a follow up fine tuning in this situation, but he just seems to want to blame me for being incompetent. I know I could have done a whole new tuning right away, but time did not allow for that.
As I mentioned, this was a fairly new Kawai baby grand that hadn't been tuned probably since leaving the factory and I don't know how long it sat in the showroom at the store before it was shipped to the client over 8 months ago.

Steve F

Dont get caught in customer incompetence ! generally pianos are delivered with a guarantee and a booklet on regular care.

I always ask the date of the last tuning when anew customer call. Tht put the subject on the tables BEFORE the tuning.

Steve:

It may seem that a change in pitch is due to pins slipping, but I think this is only the case when a pin really "lets go" and drops a great deal.

What I believe usually happens is that the note was left in tune, but there was an imbalance in the tension between the speaking and non-speaking string segments and/or an uneven torque in the pin. With time and playing the tensions and torque will equalize and the note will go out of tune. I suspect that it is a rare thing to have the tensions and torque perfectly equalized, and in time the unisons will usually start to go out. The better equalized to start with, the longer it will stay in tune.

New pianos can be difficult. The strings are still stretching causing the bends at the termination points to change, and the pinblock is usually so tight that pins can easily be left with uneven torque. This can be an opportunity to work on your hammer technique. Some may disagree, but if you are not treating the left and right strings in the treble differently, there is room for improvement. The proportional difference between the speaking length and non-speaking length is a bigger factor here than in other parts of the piano.

Something else that can help is to mate the hammers to the strings. Strings that are excited at the same instant and with the same force tend to couple better and unisons will stay in tune better.

Don’t be afraid to try different hammer techniques. Sometimes much can be learned by what doesn’t work. The only hard and fast rule I know of is it is better to come from below pitch than from above.

Also, it is the customer’s prerogative to be satisfied or not. They are the boss. If your best is not good enough, that is OK. It is still your best. Just say “I am sorry. This is the best that I can do.”

The wire hold the pin in place, not the reverse. The rest is anecdotal !

So then, if the pin slips, the wire did not do what it should?

Of course that is not what you meant, but it is what you are saying!

Most of the time I've seen tuners get the "desired" pitch by moving the pin one way or an other.

What I think, out of my own experience is: the correct pitch must be the result of the most correct pin's charge.

Then, the string and the pin are holding each other, in a dynamic, most stable relation.

When I turn the hammer clock-wise I calculate how much the pin is twisting and bending. More clock-wise, I can hear where the spot is, then I go way up, (5, 10, 20 bps, it depends) evaluating the pin's rotation in relation to its torquing and bending. Now, I only need to turn the hammer anti clock-wise, and gain the spot with a charged pin.

A few passages are missing here, for a simplifyed explaination.

Kawai (in Italy) have quite tight pins, hard to turn, so you'd need to go even higher in pitch to gain the spot with a correctly charged pin.

a.c.

All of the above posts and be aware that the RX series has a measurably steeper string angle in the capo section than most pianos. Not necessarily, in itself, a bad thing but the additional friction should be taken into account along with the feel of the pin, which, to me, although very tight, does not seem to have the springiness that helps enormously in these situations. It is highly unlikely that the pins have 'slipped' in such a new piano but more likely that this friction is holding the tension in the speaking length until passage of time or a heavy blow disturbs this false equilibrium....easier to demonstrate than describe...we can only torque about it on a forum.

Well I see it as not possible to have correctly "charged" pin and much residual tension that will move later.

But we say all the same thing more or less, to get there the pin have to be worked with the maximum tension in the wire. Lowering the pitch before turning the pin helps to fell what is going on, and also to have that max tension just near the tuning pin.

If the rendering is poor you will feeel it better also.

If apin slips it may be because the wire is not keeping it in position enough, or because the friction zone in the block is icey, sometime using more twist can help.

The fact that in case of a strong blow at worst the note will raise a tad, is generally a way to be guaranteed against the drift, atoo high note is way less noticed than atoo low one. But indeed if we leave too much strain in the wire near the tuning pin and too much twist in the pin, then it is not correctly charged, it only want to spring back.

SO it is easy to do, but the reading of the system is to be learned and that is amix between left and right and (and ear)