Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Piano Changing Pitch 6 Cents in 10 Minutes!?

I realize there are probably a gazillion ways to do a pitch raise, but David Schwoyer's post reminded me of how I used to do them. I did them slowly!

'Not anymore. My aural procedure now is to strip the entire piano, set a quick temperament, pull one string per note through the rest of the scale noting the needed movement, then silent-tuning the unisons for the whole piano using the amount the one string needed to be pulled as a guide. Do a finish tuning, and usually the piano is nicely at pitch and very stable.

It takes some practice, and some of my early attempts crashed spectacularly, but now the whole procedure takes 45 min. or less on a good day. On a bad day ... 46 and 1/2 min.

When doing pitch raises, and I also do this by ear, I usually pull the strings sharp by a few cents. Many times, even on Whitney's the strings settle down to about there they need to be. If you simply pull them to pitch they do fall, not back to where they were, but below where they need to be to do a stable fine tuning.

Wow! Silent tuning unisons!

I barely tune them aurally, I can't imagine how is it to tune them silently!

So there is a third way to tune:

1st = by ear, aural
2nd = visual, by eye
3rd = silent, by tact

I am always intrigued with people that talks about cents when tuning aurally instead of beats. Beats are trully heard when tuning aurally. You can not hear cents!

Cents are only visible when tuning with an ETD!

Gadzar, that actually makes cents!

Or...pieces...

When a piano’s pitch is changing while you are tuning it is like trying to hit a moving target. But, if you are also moving, it is easier to hit the target. Like two boys playing catch. If they are both running at the same speed it is easier than if one is running and the other is standing still.

For example, (and I am going to use cents because I use a guitar tuner to evaluate a piano's pitch and sometimes to set C4) a piano is 10 cents flat. I don’t feel a need to do a pitch raise, but will tune C4 2-4 cents sharp. The tenor section is strip muted and stays that way until the end. The temperament is set and the octaves in the tenor are tuned. Then the octaves and unisons are tuned one note at a time going up the scale. As this is done, I will notice that the lower treble is dropping in pitch because of the increased tension of the upper treble. The same thing happens in the bass. But when the tenor unisons are tuned, the pitch in the tenor section drops back to where it belongs and the piano is in tune with itself, and very close to proper pitch. Often the notes around the treble break will need to be touched up, though.

If I do a major pitch raise and the treble is still flat, I will give a string or two of each treble unison a yank without playing the note to get the tension up before fine tuning.

I've found that the strongest point on using an ETD is pitch raises. You can calculate how much to overpull the strings in the first pass to be close enough to do a fine tuning in the second pass. And you have no guessing to do.

Unright,

So you too, you use to silently tune unisons! (or pulling strings without hearing at them). How do you do this?

Gadzar:

I mostly use a jerk-style when tuning, anyway. So, I give the pin the jerk I think it deserves. Better a little too much than not enough. It seems the treble will drop in pitch more from not enough than it will rise from too much. Sometimes when I am tuning above pitch, expecting it to drop down, I find that the treble is dropping too much. Then I will give the treble pins a jerk up and go back down a 5th or so and retune. Like all techniques it takes trial and err... uh, practice.

I've never tried it. I was taugh to never move a tuning pin without sounding the corresponding string.

I guess this is valid only for beginners, to avoid breaking strings.

Interesting techniques on pitch raising that I have never heard. I will have to experiment with some of these methods.

Regarding original post:
I just wanted to thank everyone for helping me with the Whitney Spinet pitch drop episode. I don't know when I'll see this piano again, but I will let you know what I find out. One thing I did notice is that after the forced air heat stopped blowing, the pitch of the strings came up from 6 cents flat to about 3 cents flat, but I didn't stick around to see what happened after that. I plan on returning on a warmer day.

Referring back to the original post, even tho it's a Whitney spinet, it shouldn't have dropped like that. I concur that it's probably structural. No one has yet mentioned pinblock separation from the back. Also a plate crack may be developing at the treble strut.

I have seen even high quality pianos (Steinway B's & D's, Yamaha C7's) move several cents in as little as a minute or two when there is airflow around the piano such as forced hot air or AC. In one case the piano was a good 12' from the FHA floor duct and had a full DC with bottom cover. This was in a recording studio where the HVAC was just maintaining a normal temperature, not changing it. It's easy enough to check for this effect - just monitor A4 using your EDT while the HVAC is cycling on and off.

- Mark

Good Idea Mark. This is what I was considering... monitor the A440 and other notes as the temperature cycles in the room and while I'm there inspect for structural issues.