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Thanks, Chris! Every time I tune, I hear something new to pay attention to and consider--something that I haven't heard before. I'm really enjoying the endeavor!

--Andy

Lucas, post the video of you playing last November. It was in Reverse Well so see how many people on here like that better! Yes, the piano you played on had loose tuning pins and was way off pitch when I tuned it entirely by ear. I actually had to use the "slow pull" (although it was more like "slow push") method to tune it, the best I could at the moment.

Here is the one from November. This was for a news thing, I could not get the ending to save my life, but oh well. I think it was because we only had a short amount of time to record it, so what ever happened we had to keep. But anyways here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB7UGvI1rI4

Nice playing Lucas...I like the piece as well.....as I was listening to the piano, was thinking the hammers need some voicing, and was not particularly happy with the tuning....then I read Bill's post above yours....no wonder I didn't like it!!

Chris,I am NOT at home but I just realized that I can dictate a post from my smartphone. I will elaborate later but in this case, all things considered, what I will do is turn the piano upside down and apply CA glue through the holes in the bottom of the pin block. I expect that it will make the piano actually have a completely normal feel to it after I do that and the time spent doing it will be rather minimal.

Wow! Back home after travels and just now listening to this on a dark grey, cool day.

Sublime playing, and the piano sounds wonderful!

Forrest

P.S. Very Prokofiev-esque!

Bill, what I find interesting is the trend towards using super glue on deteriorating modern generation pianos, rather than only for salvaging grandmothers old cluncker.

Is there reason for doing it from the bottom rather than the top?

Lucas, you are very lucky indeed to have a mentor such as Bill so early on.

Doing it from the bottom will be cleaner, and plus you wont see anything anyways.

I dislike comparing one brand of piano against another for resiliency or longevity. Kawai's are excellent instruments! I prefer them over those that may be considered similar such as Yamaha and Young Chang.

The piano in question here is only about 10 years old but it is already "toast". I would say that some technicians would call it, "totaled".

I refer to what an automobile insurance claims adjuster told me a few years ago about how a car is determined to be a total loss or not. If the cost of repairs exceeds 70% of the total value of the item, then it is considered a total loss and only worth salvage value.

So, there is a 10 year old Kawai RX-3 with two huge cracks in the soundboard, tuning pins that will not hold pitch and deeply grooved hammers that have already been filed a couple of times. What is its value as is? Who would EVER buy that at ANY price?

The school can pay for a day's labor, yes but not for a re-pinning or re-stringing. In a day's time, the hammers could again be filed and a maintenance regulation be done along with a CA glue treatment to the pinblock from the underside, rather than slobbering all over the top side and mostly only affecting the tuning pin bushings rather than the pinblock. Treating the tuning pins from the underside makes sense and is an advantage that only grand pianos have. The glue actually goes right where it will do some good!

Very nice Andy. Good job.

Yesterday I introduced my customer to EBVT III. The piano needed pitchraise, so I raised it and did a rough WT. I explained him how WT works. I played a few pieces. He was happy, me too. The piano sounds great!!
Ican do nothing against it: is is so musical

One more for the archives. Last night, I spent more time in Oregon, IL at the old Schiller piano factory, working on that beefy 1925 Conover grand the Bill and I worked on last fall. At that time, Bill re-shaped the hammers, which improved the tone, but they were still pretty hard. So, last night I did some voicing. Well, *lots* of voicing, actually. First, I tuned the piano to EBVT III with the SAT (and my ears ) as best I could. Then, I got into the action and I poked and poked and poked the hammers with my needling tool as needed. Worked on it for more than a few hours. Then, I did a final tuning pass and played some music.

This one turned out okay, I suppose. It is "What A Diff'rence A Day Made," a fox trot by Stanley Adams and Maria Grever published in 1934. I played it straight from the sheet. Not sure you could dance to it, but I hope you like it, anyway!

https://app.box.com/s/3vonojmbhxatvy6s6adi

This old Conover is still a noisy piano, but it's starting to reveal its secrets and show me more about what it needs...

--Andy

Andy,

You are doing very well! I am not sure I could make it sound any better, really! I found it interesting that the Spanish translation of that song was nothing at all like the English. It said, "Quando vuelva a tu lado" ("When by your side again".)

What I believe top think when listening to that temperament is that no pure interval is necessary, if only for the advantage of those large sound for low basses chords as it happens only in one or 2 tonalities, the inconvenience is too large ( too fast intervals that tend to stick out)

I think that a trade off between pure something and pure something is largely enough , from a consonance point of view (I talk of course of 12-15 consonance and how it is "reflected" in the 5ths.

Based on this I think small variations between tonalities must be appreciated. In the intervals I listened in the Lucas thread 2 sixths are really awful, and one too slow.
SO I would think it is too contrasted yet for me.
Glbally sounding as "forcing" the instrument into those differences not sounding as something natural, to me.

ANd I am not opposed of slight imbalances in intervals, I just believe they must be justified by the instrument. I am really unsure they need to follow the circle of 5ths, as long as all intervals are sounding good, the color variations are refreshing.

Thanks, Bill! I tried playing the second verse in Spanish, but I couldn't quite handle the accent. Actually, I may yet "YouTube-i-fy" this one with a rolling score so people can actually read along with the page. I worked on the Conover that night because someone in the area has an "accomplished pianist" coming to visit this weekend and needs to be able to get to a public piano. This Conover is not too shabby, and is certainly in better shape than the one they have in their home. For the Conover grand, I see a key bushing job in its future, which I will do at my expense to gain the experience...

One baby step at a time,
--Andy

If you had gone to the Dick Hyman recital that Lucas and I attended recently and went to the piano before the event started and played the intervals, you would have run from the room screaming, "It wouldn't work, couldn't work and shouldn't be tried". Knowing that the artist would play the entire concert using mostly the remote keys, you would have played the G#-D# 5th and found it to be beating about 4 beats per second wide and the F#-A#, G#-C, B-D# and D#-F Major thirds all to be far beyond your tolerances. It was the 1/7 Comma Meantone Temperament and it is much more unequal than my Victorian temperament which you find to be intolerable.

Yet, the artist and the audience did not seem to notice any of that. The artist gleefully played the entire concert and told the audience that it was the finest piano he had ever performed upon (which seems to happen very often at that venue).

Andy also witnessed a similar instance at a concert hall in Janesville where we worked last week. The Canadian artist took it upon himself to publicly thank me for such a fine piano. This rarely happens with a piano tuned in ET.


So, how do you explain that, Isaac? "Oh, those artists know but they don't complain"? (As I remember you saying one time). I don't think so. What I think is that you are missing something of which you know nothing at all and you are trying to keep other people from knowing what you don't know. You are trying to impose your personal judgment and prejudice upon everyone else. You want to tell everyone else what they should like instead of letting people decide for themselves what they like and do not like.

You are not alone in that, however, Isaac, I have to admit that. There are plenty of piano technicians who would say the very same thing as you have. However, I learned many years ago to ignore that kind of criticism. I do what Steinway says, I respond to what the artists and the piano playing public say about tuning and temperament, not what other piano technicians say, that is, unless they agree with me. Then, I pay attention. Otherwise, I ignore it completely, have done so for 25 years and hopefully will continue to do so for another 25 years. So, you might as well give up trying to tell me and the people who post on this topic what you think is wrong because you are wasting your time and energy in doing it.

It just so happens that I know what ET intervals are supposed to sound like but that is not what I do unless I am trying to teach someone how to tune it or in the rare instance that I tune a Quasi ET. You, however, do not know what Well Tempered intervals are supposed to sound like, otherwise you would not have said what you did in your post. You don't know what you don't know but you are broadcasting it around the world.

You probably did not read what I posted. It have nothing to do with others and I don't care showing publicly my lack of knowledge of WT. I said I don't believe pure intervals are necessary. May be there are none but I doubt of that.

If it please your customers, good to you.

Well, here it is, you-tube-i-fied (you'll probably have to watch in "full screen" to be able to read the words):



And, the report is, the pianist who came to visit *did* come to the mall to play the piano, and did so for several hours!

--Andy

Another couple to plunk into the archives. Two "versions" of the same "version." It's a transcription by Ellen Rowe of an interpretation by Marian McPartland of a piece by Dave Brubeck called, "Summer Song." I'm sure you know it.

I wrestled with the Lester spinet on Saturday, though I could not command the bass. Everything kept going sharp, sharp, sharp. I suppose I should have floated the pitch, but I really wanted it at A440, because that's how the Lester sounds best, I think. But I wrestled and wrestled. *sigh* Still, I recorded it, because I had to get this song out of my system!

Summer Song on the Lester spinet

Today, I wrestled with the Steinway L I've been taking care of at Morningstar Village (an assisted living center). This one gave me fits with the unisons. Some of them turned out rather, uh, Viennese, I think... I recorded "Summer Song," again, because Hakki wasn't happy with the sound of the bass on the recording of the Lester that I posted in Pianist Corner. I hope he likes "Viennese unisons!"

Summer Song on the Steinway L

--Andy

You win.

Only a sucker would prefer the Steinway recording.