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RE: Tuning Pianos

Author: Jerry McD.
Date: 2001-09-28 21:57

Unless your friend has ever turned a tuning pin, I would suggest that someone else does it. In order to properly tune a piano you cannot use a mechanical tuner for anything beyond the temperament (any decent piano tuner wouldn't even use one this much). The temperament is F to F around middle C. The rubber things that were mentioned in the above post are called mutes. You mute off the two outside strings and tune the middle string. For the middle bass there are generally two wound strings and you mute off one side or the other. After the center string is tuned properly (more information than could possibly written in one post) you remove one of the mutes and tune the outer string to the middle, which requires a perfect unison.....which is really difficult if, if not impossible if you haven't been taught how to do it. Then you repeat the process for the third string. A very experienced tuner can tune the third unison string without muting off the opposite outside string, in essence tuning one string while two other (which must be in perfect unison) vibrate. As for using the tuner, because of the even well tempered scale, if you use a tuner throughout the entire range of the instrument you can't add any 'stretch' to the octaves and you will end up with a bass area way too sharp and the altissimo way too flat. I hope this helps, this is really not enough information to truly understand what is going on inside a piano tuners head but I hope this helps shed a little light on the subject. Also, you cannot wreck a piano by breaking a string, and if the soundboard is cracked the instrument will not crumble. If anyone wants to know why, let me know.

Jerry McD.

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