I play one or two gigs per month on the piano in the recordings below. It's a very nice Yamaha, but they haven't kept up with the tuning. They are resistant to paying to have it tuned, and I'm trying to decide how hard to push them. If it didn't set a precedent, I'd even pay to have it tuned.

I hear it as pretty out of tune. I realize that 99% of the public wouldn't notice it, however, I think they'd like the sound better if it were in tune.

So, please listen to this recording, made last night, and tell me whether you think it's a problem, or whether I'm just being a tunochondriac.

Thanks.

East of the Sun

Equinox Excerpt

Overall I don't hear it as terribly out of tune but there are definitely some clunkers, including the low G, and the G and G# above middle C.

Edit: The above comment was based on only seeing the Equinox link. The East of the Sun link sounds worse due to the different style.

A lot of the unisons are out.

Al,

Yes, the piano is out of tune but what can you do? I have hours of onsite piano horror stories. I worked for close to 30 years playing gigs and finally quit working (not practicing though) and went into I.T. I played in plenty of high end hotel lobbies, restaurants and bars where the Food and Beverage manager was more concerned about straws and complimentary cheese goldfish than he was about spending $80 to tune the piano. To him a tuned piano or an untuned piano were one in the same.

My favorite story is about my friend that showed up to a new gig and the piano was a dog turn of the century upright. But the club owner was real proud of it becaue it had been freshly painted! Eventually he quit because it was practiacally impossible to play....

I know your piano is sour but if you have a grand piano that is kind of close to being in tune and all the keys and dampers work you might consider your situation fortunate. Just keep "humoring" the managment and perhaps one day soon they'll tune it. Hang in there bud..

Dan

Thanks, Dan, that's the attitude I am trying to have. Your experiences are like those described in this book that I recently read (good book).

I am so fortunate to have a regular gig that doesn't involve packing up my piano and stuffing it into my car. I'll just try to stop thinking how we could sound better with a well-tuned piano.

There are some notes I don't like, but overall I'd say that is in the acceptable range for a real world acoustic situation piano.

If nothing else, at least, give it a fast once over, because there are a LOT of badly out of tune unison's. One of them is in the higher treble area but, it is also throughout the piano.

Hi Al,

I got into piano tuning for the very same reason you are wanting a nicer sounding piano for your gigs. I play professionally and one location's piano was never in tune and I would dread performing on it (that's not the way a pianist should feel before a performance, right?). It was a heavily abused piano, played on every night and afternoons, and the once-a-year tuning that the manager paid for would last maybe 2 nights before the unisons would start wobbling again.
I bought a cheap tuning hammer as most newbies do, and I practiced on my home piano, trying to hear an out-of-tune unison vs. an in-tune unison. I turned the lever slowly and carefully at first(not to overdo anything) and within a couple of days, I was able to get the unisons pretty close, if not perfect. When I was confident at finding the offending string and putting the hammer on the correct pin, I asked the manager if I could come in 30 minutes early and touch up some howling unisons. He didn't care, as long as it didn't cost him anything, so I tried it and you know what? I had an enjoyable gig that night! It wasn't perfect by any means (I didn't know how to set temperaments or 5ths yet), but the piano at least sounded clean.

If you start out putting the lever on carefully and turning it counter-clockwise to flatten a little, and then clockwise to sharpen the string to pitch (since most offending strings have gone flat from their neighbors), eventually you will be able to get quicker at it. When I mean small movements, let's say it's the grand piano and the butt of your lever is at 12 noon. Slowly turn it to 11 o'clock first, then up to 1 o'clock or maybe 2 o'clock and see if you can get it close. These small movements likely will not do any damage (such as bending a pin, or worst-case, breaking a string). But you know what, even if that were to happen (which is very unlikely), just play the gig as normal - then at the end of the night, tell the manager something's wrong with the piano. Then they will have to pay a tuner to have it fixed!

If you rather not get your hands dirty with all this tuning touch-up business, you might mention to the manager or owner that their piano is more than a piece of furniture - it is a machine that has many moving parts that needs maintenance. And like every machine we buy, it is an investment for their club/restaurant. If he doesn't have it tuned often enough, it can actually harm the piano because pianos like uniform tension. I'm 'dumbing' this down for an explanation that a layman would hopefully understand.

If that doesn't work, you might have to try touching it up yourself, as I mentioned above. I started out that way, one thing led to another, and now I tune my home piano from scratch regularly as well as many clients' pianos (students, fellow performers).
It really is a fun and interesting endeavor that you can get into as deep as you want to, for a lifetime!

Good luck, hope this helps.
-Erich

P.S. I hope I am not offending any techs by suggesting that Al tune some unisons himself, but for the 6-month or yearly tuning, of course a professional technician in your area should be hired to keep the piano at its best.

Thanks, Erich, that is exactly what I'd do if I had an acoustic piano at home. I'd enjoy that, and I have the feeling that years of trombone have made my ear pretty good.

But I have a digital keyboard, so there's nothing to practice on. Otherwise I'd get a book, and some pointers from a friend who is a tuner.

In that book I mentioned above, the author said that he would stuff cocktail napkins under some strings to raise the pitch.

Hi Al, if your friend lives in your area, offer him lunch in return for touching up the Yamaha unisons the day of the gig. The tuning should hold for your gig that night. Better yet, when business is slowest (say 3 o'clock), have him explain to you what he is doing while he does it and you can turn this into an impromptu tuning lesson. Getting a book is one thing, but seeing someone do it right before you is worth all the books.

After he does a unison for you, then you give it a try with him watching. That way you can practice tuning on the very piano that you want to be tuned and you are doing it on a quality acoustic grand piano. If anything goes haywire (which it most likely will not), you have him as a safety net. In my experience, Yamahas are pretty easy to hear and easy to bring up to pitch (I have a Yamaha upright at home and my mom has a Yamaha grand).

After a couple of these tuning lessons/free lunches(for your friend), you should be able to come in on your own and do it. We all have to start somewhere - might as well be on the piano that you want to sound nice for your performances.

Good luck with the tuning! Oh, nice playing by the way on the recorded samples!
-Erich

Hi Al,

Nice playing.

Go for it! I mean, get yourself a non extension pro tuning lever, a couple of rubber mute wedges and spot the single strings out of the three strings unisons that are off and concentrate on getting rid of the wang sound.

A good advice is start relaxing the string first and when you hear there is a change, you're on the right string, go ahead.

Here is a picture showing how strings are set up in a grand.



Also somebody mentioned that you should move the tuning lever from 12 o'clock to 11 and 1 o'clock. I think this is too much. You don't want to move your lever that much. Just bear in mind that your goal is to "change" the position of the tuning pin as quick as possible without bending it.

This will be possible if you manipulate your tuning lever in a way that you jerk it from left to right by means of little impacts. Here is a video showing the movement the tuning lever will do.

Since videos are not allowed, go to http://pianotuninghowto.com/medias/lever-movement.wmv

As you can see, the lever hardly move!

Good luck

Darn it, Mario, now you've got me thinking about this, and I don't need another hobby!

The problem is that there are only a few pianos around town, so my opportunities for learning this skill would be limited.

However, there's a nursing home that I used to play at and stopped because their piano was always out of tune. It's a Monarch grand, and has real problems according to the tuner that tuned it, but perhaps I could practice on that.

But this could help the situation of always having to deal with pianos that are a bit out of tune.

I talked to the bartender/bar manager last night. He's been trying to convince management to tune it. He asked for the name of a good tuner, which I gave him, and said he was just going to go ahead and have the tuning done. Yay!

Rare to have someone from the venue on your side. This is turning into a pretty good gig (we're now playing twice a month).

Al, it's about as out of tune as typical piano at a venue. So nothing surprising. I would put this in the "not too bad" category. At least it's playable.

I'm glad to hear it will now be better soon.