I may have the opportunity to tune a Hamburg Steinway, model D grand in the not so distant future.

It would be my first Steinway D to tune.

May I ask those of you who have experience in tunig the Steinway D grand for your input and advise on tuning them?

Thank you.

It should be easier than tuning small pianos. A beginning tuner should start with concert grands and work towards tuning spinets, but it does not happen that way!

Ok, thanks BDB.

I tune plenty small pianos.

Make sure the customer is happy so it becomes a regular piano for you

Most all D's are a joy to tune.
I tune them all the time.

Exactly. You can hear what you are doing. BDB is right. You won't have to be constantly figuring out comprises as with a small piano. See if you can allow yourself time to enjoy it. The treble will be slightly more familiar ground but it in the long steels and covered bass strings you will experience the most difference.

I hope you don't have a pitch raise or anything to detract from the pleasure.

Thanks to all.

Regards,

If you haven't had much experience tuning Steinways or other pianos that don't have tuning pin bushings, you will notice the pins behave differently. You tuning technique should automatically accommodate after a short while. The goal is a stable tuning, so turn the pins as minimally as possible and take care to set each pin as best you can. You should do fine.

Mark, you may wish to keep the lever in the wire direction or very near, so to better feel what is going on without flagpoling.
But I suppose you are aware of that.

For the rest, you may enjoy ! setting is easy, way more than with wood bushings, no need to overdo it, use a few test blow to verify that, but the sensations are different, lighter, than with much pianos.

Thanks Jurgen and Isaac.

Regards

Dear Mark,

The advice you've seen is all excellent. I would only add that the highest treble area can be difficult to hear, if you are not often tuning big pianos with their duplex scales and capo segments ringing in the mix. I'm talking about the short segments outside the speaking length, at the front and back, which will ring sympathetically when you strike the notes. You may want to mute these areas to quiet the 'extra' input, to let you concentrate on the sounds you need to hear.

Plan on tuning the instrument twice, if you have the time, and treat it as a 'pitch-raise', even if it is close to pitch. Once through to get the piano 'leveled-out', and then a fine persnickity tuning. This lets you develop a feel for the strings and pins, and insures that your 'fine-tuning' will need minimal changes as you go through the second time...and you'll have a better understanding of how the pins and strings react to your tuning input. Fair enough?

The D can be a bit twitchy in the top octave. On your second pass; after each unison tuning in the highest octave, check the previously tuned unison, and make sure it has not been disturbed by your tuning its neighbor. Again; tune it twice for the best result. I agree that you'll do fine! Large pianos sound wonderful to the ear, and you will enjoy it!

Hope that helps,
Sincerely,

Thank you very much Jeff!

I got confirmation today that the folks i submitted the quote through to for the tuning of the S&S D would like me to tune it next week for them.

Thank you,

you will be surprised by the POWER of the instrument.
Just refrain to bang extra hard until you feel correctly the tuning
pin and wire, it would make your ears tired too soon.

Amoderate mF play, and an extra short blow test for security allow to keep the work pleasant.

It is a huge advantage to have a good analysis of the harmonic content, RXD stated lately that he rarely listen to the fundamental, there is quiet a lot of a basic truth in that sentence. (plus focusing on a partial is so much less tiring,and allow to listen to the global tone at some point, taking one parameter then another, you are so much quiter than chasing for beats or for moaning)

plus if you begin to listen to it in the mediums, when you will be in the high treble you still can focus on thickening it..

Best wishes

This is all very interesting to a pianist. Like with the players, is tuning an S&S-D a rite of passage? Somehow growing up and becoming a member of an exclusive club?

When I was growing up and devoted to the piano, our family had an S&S-M. Arriving in Senior High, I discovered the school had a 'D.' Not only that, it was a 'C-D.' OMG! I was super excited and nervous the first time I played it.

Loosing one's virginity is a monumental event.

Congratulations Mark!

A Steinway D has significantly more string tension than other pianos you may have tuned.

You will feel it in the pins, especially in the bottom half of the piano.

If you are adjusting pitch/tension, plan on a little more time for that than usual.

Wound tri-chords can finicky to tune.

Most of all, I might ask yourself why they are using a new tuner. If it is a new piano to them, OK. If they have used others then they may be looking to either save money of get a better result.

Concert grands are under more scrutiny for result and from a larger group of people. This is always a recipe for paying more attention to your final result and the folks that are playing it.

When it is an in home client, most often you are talking directly to the piano player and they are paying the bill.

Concert grands, often you don;t talk directly to the pianist and the person hiring you is not necessarily the person actually paying the bill.

This group dynamic is different that the "home" piano situation.

my 2.34724 cents

Marty, however well meaning you may be, your profanity and likining the tuning of a S&S D for the first time to loosing ones virginity is vulgar and not acceptable.

Please refrain from such behaviour and language on my thread/s.

Thank you,

What are you talking about Mark? Marty was congratulating you. I see where he uses NO profanity at all. OMG is "Oh My Gosh!" I didn't see anything wrong with it at all. Maybe the language barrier is once again, the problem?

Must be a cultural or religious thing. Marty was congratulating.

Read it as it is written; a standalone sentence.

I saw this earlier and I am in agreement with Mark. This part, as a standalone sentence, is vulgar and unacceptable on a forum of professionals.

Using sexual innuendo for describing piano tuning technique or experiences is not the trademark of consummate professionals.

First of all, it was a metaphore. Look up the definition. It was not intended to be sexual.

Secondly, I feel sorry for individuals who equate the reference to something which is considered to be dirty, shameful, or somehow needs to be kept hidden.

Enjoy your cloistered, intellectual celebacy.

Anyhow, all the best to you Mr. Davis.

Jean

That is one interpretation. This is not the appropriate place for such statements.

Intellectual seems to be something that is absent in the response.

This is Mark’s thread and he will make the decisions as to what content he desires.

Perhaps pool all of your consideration into one place, as Mark has politely asked, if there is nothing beneficial to add the topic.

That is one interpretation. This is not the appropriate place for such statements.

Intellectual seems to be something that is absent in the response.

This is Mark’s thread and he will make the decisions as to what content he desires.

Perhaps pool all of your consideration into one place, as Mark has politely asked, if there is nothing beneficial to add the topic.

Is this true? I am pretty sure that Steinways are generally low tension scales, but I don't know about D's specifically.

Longer strings have higher tensions. Thicker strings have higher tensions. Longer pianos almost always have longer and thicker strings.

1st premise -- longer strings higher tension for a given pitch: Correct
2nd premise -- thicker strings higher tension for a given pitch: Correct.

Conclusion-- Longer pianos almost always have longer and thicker strings (and therefore have higher tension): Incorrect.

They may be longer but are not necessarily thicker. Bass strings on a 9' piano will always be significantly thinner than on a spinet. String lengths from c-52 up to c-88 on a 9' piano won't be much different from on a 45" upright.

There are 4 basic styles of stringing scales . . .
short scale/low tension
short scale/high tension
long scale/low tension
long scale high tension

Scaling style is not governed by the length of piano. For example, S&S "D" has a shorter scale (and lower tension) than the Kawai GS 100 scale which is a long scale/high tension scale. Both are 9' pianos, but that model of Kawai has a much higher tension scale.

No, it's not true.

<<Longer strings have higher tensions. Thicker strings have higher tensions. Longer pianos almost always have longer and thicker strings.- BDB>>

Dear BDB,

Uh....no? That set of statements is incorrect. Next time you look at a 9-ft Steinway I invite you to look at the lowest wound strings on the piano. Because they are soooooooo long, they do not need to be heavier! They are, in fact, much lighter. Not double-wound. Not high tension. Compared to a spinet at C1... a D's C1 is less than 1/2 the diameter of those stiff, inflexible, and unmusical hunks of copperplated junk in a Winter spinet. They are lighter and thinner in a large grand because the length provides the weight that shorter pianos must imitate with heavier strings. The opposite of your statement.

Higher tension? Uh...no again. I let the remark go by in an earlier post, because a 9-ft does have significantly more tension overall. But that is because there are simply more strings in the piano! The triple-plain wire unisons extend much further down the scale. That's why concert grands can get up near 60-70,000 lbs. of tension. But the wire is NOT thicker or heavier for any given note. The opposite is true, sir. In fact, concert grands generally use a lighter wire than an upright or spinet for any given note; because they can use the LENGTH of the piano instead of the WEIGHT of a shorter thicker string.

These are basic facts, BDB. Honest.

Surprised,
I am,

What part of "almost always" do you not understand?

Even if there are a very few strings on a large piano that are thinner than the corresponding strings on a small piano, if that resulted in lower tension overall, there would be a tremendous unbalance between the tension on the lowest plain strings and the highest wound strings, which would be difficult, if not impossible to overcome by voicing. I can probably dig up some concert grand bass string dimensions that would show that there is greater tension on them than there is on the comparable notes of a smaller piano, but you could do this yourself. I am sure that you have not.

Firstly, as i understand it, OMG in general stands for Oh My God which is profanity.

Secondly, Gerry, your statement is false and has no weight.I do take exception to Martys use of inaproriate and unnecessary language. It is simply out of place and unacceptable.

Thirdly, Marty, you continue to make shameful and unsavoury comments. Have you no decency?

Fourthly, is it not against forum rules to write offensive and vulgar language?