Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum So, what did you do today?

Well Jeff,

I am aware of all of this; more importantly I am acutely aware of the members here who are spending their time running around in the background, in their little groups, with their little vendettas and subterfuge; attempting to get others banned from memberships.

I am not frustrated, angry, or bitter. When this type of thing becomes the reality here it is time for me to exit.

I will leave you with these Maxims of Law;

Qui tacet consentire videtur.( He who is silent appears to consent)

Qui parcit nocentibus, innocentibus punit. (He who spares the guilty, punishes the innocent. )

Qui non obstat quod obstare potest facere videtur. He who does not prevent what he can, seems to commit the thing. “Herein resides culpability”

More to the point;

The believability factor has naught to do with existence. Whether one believes or dis-believes

Finally this one;

Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.
—Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion

As I said we will continue to have our differences. I can only think of one way that you could be “acutely aware” of all this; by being right in the middle of it.

The temptation to gossip is more than I can resist, so I do not have my PMs turned on.

‘nuff said.

You make silly assertions without basis in fact.

Another way would be to have a discussion with the moderators.

A further way would be to have intuition of matters.

Sit back and read for a week and it all becomes clear.

Sounds like gossip to me!

Thanks, BDB. I did know that but it was an afterthought. I had not paid attention to whether it was a round or square tail, although I think it probably was an L.

I tuned a Steinway today that had been rebuilt but the model number painted over but it definitely was an O and the serial number was in the 100,000's.

Would you believe that the piano at the Wisconsin Governor's mansion is marked "L" but is clearly an "M" (with two unisons of wound strings in the tenor). My only thought was that the rebuilt piano may have been misidentified but whether it was or not, it made no difference in how I serviced it.

I decided to practice tuning uprights lefty today...

At a recent PTG meeting, one of the techs that graduated from the Chicago school mentioned that they all learn righty for grands and lefty for uprights.

Sounded like a good skill to have.

Ron Koval
chicagoland

I tuned an L yesterday. It was 10 years old and had been neglected. It needed a pitch raise, and a couple of notes had to be voiced quite a bit.

Not so much what I did, as I had done for me...

Had the pleasure of having Bill Bremmer tune my recently purchased Walter studio this afternoon. It's about 4 yrs old and the previous owner maintained it well and had the action lightened last year (a detail that will come into play in a bit).

I had called the local Walter dealership for a tuning and to investigate a few keys that were clicking upon release. When they told me that Bill would be doing the work, his name sounded familiar. So I searched PW's forums and was quite intrigued and excited about getting an EBVT III tuning. I was surprise as to how impressive that pipe organ effect is in person. My only regret is that I took a late afternoon appt., so by time Bill was done, I only had about 15 minutes of playing time before dinner, cleanup, bathing kids and bedtime for our 5 & 7 yr old daughters. Even worse, my schedule won't allow me to play much until Sat. (Oh, the agony!) In that limited time I noticed that the treble now has a pleasant bell-like singing tone, and I can't wait to "experiment" with other changes I notice. My wife said the piano sounds much more powerful. Maybe in a week or so I'll post an update in the EBVT III thread.

As for that clicking sound, when Bill pulled some keys he noticed felt glued to the bottom of each key just behind the balance rail punching (if I recall correctly). I'm presuming that this was done by the piano tech. who lightened the action. The felt on the offending keys were hard from the glue. For some reason the clicking lessened quite a bit when Bill put the keys back in, so we decided to leave as-is for now and address if it comes back and is bothersome.

Hopefully it won't come back because I want my next piano-related purchase to be a Dampp-Chaser to help control humidity given the 4 distinct season that WI gets. It is impractical to keep indoor humidity consistent throughout the year in this type of climate, especially in older houses.

Today was the meeting of my bocce league. I was tired, and miscounted the number of players, so we decided to have 24 teams, with some teams having an extra player, which is easier for me to schedule. I will be a fifth wheel, which means that if I want to take some time off, it will not be a problem. Having done the scheduling for nearly 20 years, I deserve some time off.

BHB,

Nice to hear the story of a good outcome and an especially happy customer! Thanks for sharing.

Yesterday, I tuned 4 pianos, 3 at my college. Kind of hard to tune more than that lately but, I'm muddling through.

I'm off for a 200 mile day with 7 pianos (6 locations). But then a 5 day weekend in/around the shop here, and dangerously close to those snowshoes hanging on the wall...IF MICHIGAN COULD GET SOME PROPER SNOW!!!! Today its raining, so I'm probably in for a slippery drive...but even then, it beats working outside like my brother in law who does land surveying.

Of late, I'm able to get most weeks to be 4 long days, and have three day weekends...loving the four day schedule!!!! ...and it has re-infused the joy into the gig!

RPD

Thanks BHB, I do hope to hear more about how the piano tuning affects your playing. Please see the long thread by Unequally Tempered. It discusses sensitivity in playing. Also, you can hear examples of many kinds of music performed in the EBVT III here: http://www.billbremmer.com/ebvt/

The problem I found with "clicking" on BHB's piano was that someone had cut off the front portion of the balance rail punchings and glued them with hot animal hide glue to the bottoms of the keys! The key level was flawless and the piano in perfect order otherwise.

Clipping the front portion of the balance rail punching is a technique I don't have a problem with, necessarily. I have even done it before upon request. The idea is that it would provide a little less resistance on the downstroke (thus making the touch a bit lighter). Maybe, maybe not, couldn't hurt is my impression of that.

However, gluing the punching to the bottom of the key was not only unnecessary but destructive. For some of the punchings, the glue soaked all the way through the felt and thus produced the kind of clatter you hear from very old felts which are completely hardened.

I would have to scrape off these felts and at least try to avoid removing any wood from the key in doing so. Then I would have to replace the balance rail punchings and re-level the keys.

Not being able to perform this long and tedious task on the spot and noticing that the key upstop rail was set a bit high, I thought it was worth a try to lower it a bit. The rail has some nice soft felt on it. So, I lowered it to the point where the rail felt contacts the keys but did not press on them. The clatter was completely gone after doing that!

So, for the time being, the clatter is gone but I expect that at some point, it will return and the permanent solution for it will have to be the undoing of a misguided attempt at easing the touch weight.

Well, what do you know... I'm left-handed, and when I started tuning that method (grands/righty, uprights/lefty) felt most comfortable. So that's what I do. I always thought this was a home remedy, glad to hear that it's actually advocated by some

I am considering tuning the high treble on grands with the left hand to avoid the extra flagpoling with the extension. I do this when touching up sometimes.

I raised the pitch on my Ibach from about -40 to about -20 cents today (didn't have an electronic tuner this time, but started the pitch raise with A4 at 440, and it ended up about 5 bps flat).

Some of the moves didn't feel as strange as last time, and I spent less time agonizing - it took me about 3 hours this time round - but I'm in no hurry.

By the way, I used the other string of the F3 bichord to set the CM3s, and also checked the octave sizes of A3-A4 and F3-F4. This time, I had much less trouble with the CM3s. I must admit, though, that I couldn't really differentiate between 4:2 and 6:3... (both tests seemed to hold true equally) - at least my pin-setting wasn't fine enough to favor the one over the other.

Again, I felt more comfortable with my left hand on the lever, except in the low bass.

Learning to tune (or tune some of the piano on grands) left handed is something I've been slowly seeing the wisdom to. (ending sentences with a preposition is also fun)

I'm going to try this maybe in the near future. I'm lucky not to have too much difficulty with my right shoulder socket after outfitting with a carbon fiber lever, but there appears to be a myriad of reasons to upgrade to this skill...

hmmmmm....

RPD

Thanks for the reminder, Ron! I usually endeavor to tune at least part of upright pianos with my left arm, but then I get lazy and in a hurry and revert back to my old ways. I'll spend more time tuning like a lefty this week. Anything that saves repetitive stress is important!

I only tune right-handed when the piano is up against a wall on the bass side- but my screwdrivers and wrenches are ambidextrous.

If you only tune left-handed pianos, you can always tune right-handed.

Today... I was supposed to sit around, work on the WESTPAC 1 conference and get over my cold. Nope.

3:20 PM the Hilton calls me. The piano has a loud click and the pianist says some notes are out of tune. Unacceptable. Would I please come now because the party starts at 5:30? $$$

4:10 PM Kawai GE-2 not been tuned in a while.. still at 439 in the middle.. not so bad. The hammer rest rail was loose in the bass, easy fix. The key bed was knocking in the treble, so I checked all the glide bolts, decided that only the top one needed adjusting, and that took all of 2 minutes.
I went through the tuning, once only, doubling back through the top octave. I had asked for an iron and a wet rag. When I was done tuning, I pulled the action again and steamed the hammers quickly. What a difference. Tone instead of slappy edgy sound. I was ready to leave at 5:15 when they asked me to remove the lid. We also (4 banquet guys with me under the piano) moved the spider dolly out from under the piano after I explained that to the manager that it was unsafe to have the piano up on the dolly with the casters still attached to the legs. It also made the piano uncomfortable for the pianist because the pedals were three inches too high.

The regular tech is one of the better techs in the city but they need to actually call him and ask him to do the work. Not his fault at all.

This was for a big fundraiser banquet with a guy they flew in from Israel to perform for the occasion. It was kind of odd sneaking out the side door in my jeans when many of my friends from the Jewish Community Center were there dressed to the nines and already starting on the champagne.

I need a nap.