Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Enhanced Tuning Stability: Real or Coincidental?

I have been thinking about this lately.

I tune being mindful of the non speaking length tension. I try to leave it equal or slightly higher than the speaking length.

But, I have been thinking that if it is Winter, the soundboard will rise in Summer and can cause the strings to go sharp. But if I leave the NSL tension lower, but not so low that the string goes flat on hard blows, then in the Summer when the board flattens, the NSL tension may not be able to pull up the string as much.

In any case, I know that pianos I tune regularly don't need as much tweaking.

Stability comes with practice....lots and lots of practice and experience in the field. There is a 'feel' to the set of a properly positioned pin that is damn near impossible to express.

This is exactly the reason that I have to smile a bit at some of the posts here extolling one pin setting method or another, and often try to get posters out of the weed patch of theorizing. If you are teaching neophytes, yes, you do have to think up some sort of way to convey what the goal is, but in reality, experience is the only reliable teacher. To put that experience into words is yes "damn bear impossible"!

All pianos come out of the factory sharp, sometimes very. If they can be kept sharp in the store, this is a good start to stability. Let them lose pitch by themselves. Tuners of old used to say never tune downward, always tune upward, meaning the general pitch of the piano and the last pin movement of every pin setting.

Being somewhat a gypsy, it's a tendency to seek pastures new, I have started many businesses with immediate success. This means I have left many clients in the hands of tuners I have befriended. When I stay in touch with them, they always mention how my pianos have stayed in tune for years before my ex clients finally call them.

I have always followed this maxim of avoiding lowering the pitch but to let any lowering take place naturally.

With an older piano, the first thing I did was to raise the pitch slightly above standard. An older piano doesn't need much and let the pitch float downward with each successive tuning.

Awareness of the season, the way pianos behave in your specific area climate vagaries, the type of use of the piano, etc. if the piano does show more pitch loss than expected, bring it slightly sharp again at the next tuning. I don't believe in tuning a piano Amy more than I'd really necessary, always telling clients to call me when they're good n ready but try not to leave it longer than a year.

This makes for easier tuning at each visit never doing more than is necessary to get all the intervals in proportion to each other Too many tuners approach each job as an exercise in tuning when all that is necessary is to show an understanding of pianos and do only what is necessary. This leaves time to tune the customer also. that is most important.

One reason concert instruments need so much attention is that pitch sometimes has to be lowered but on a domestic situation, even with teenagers learning other instruments, keeping the instrument slightly sharp helps stability for the very practical reasons mentioned. I always mention this in tuning the customer, jack Codd, of Whelpdale Maxwell and always told me to time the customer, the piano will look after itself. I believe thus is what he, too, meant. Tuning a piano is not the big deal many tuners want to make it. As with anything else, the secret to success is in the preparation.

This is exactly the reason that I have to smile a bit at some of the posts here extolling one pin setting method or another, and often try to get posters out of the weed patch of theorizing. If you are teaching neophytes, yes, you do have to think up some sort of way to convey what the goal is, but in reality, experience is the only reliable teacher. To put that experience into words is yes "damn bear impossible"!

First of all how does one measure NSL?

Thanks, Mark. Do you mean "then in the Summer when the board flattens" or that it rises or expands? Not sure I follow.

Thank you, rxd. I had wondered about this too. I know that the tuner in question always prepped new pianos slightly sharp. As mentioned in the OP, many years later these pianos were always found sharp - often very sharp. This could very well imply that, in practice, he never tuned down.

This leads, then, to another question: Is there something at work in the dynamics or engineering of the piano itself that could account for enhanced or longer lasting tuning when the instrument is continuously tuned up and maintained sharp? Such that would make it more resistant to the things that typically cause a piano to go out of tune?

While individual strings stayin put forms a good part of a piano staying in tune, this is about a more gestalt aspect of tuning whereby a few successive tunings by the same tuner will cause all sections of the piano to stay in close relationship to each other for years.

Experienced Itinerant tuners notice that the work of one tuner persistently stays through seasonal changes better than the work of others.

It is something over and above mere excellent pin setting. The consensus so far is not to jack the pitch around more than absolutely necessary among other considerations.

One of those is attitude. Obsessives will lock the pitch down to standard at every visit which is rather like a stopped clock being right twice a day,. It is only ever on pitch twice a year. Also a sense of efficiency on the part of the tuner and a tauist attitude of going with the flow. Not all these attributes come naturally to many people, they have to control evrything.