 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Lisa Chien
Date: 2001-09-28 20:03
I have a friend whose piano is horribly out of tune. Although he is a millionare he behaves as if he were impecunious and refuses to pay to tune his potentially beautifullly sounding Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano. Because he doesn't work for a living he is always in puttering aound in his Schloß restoring antiques. He recently unearthed a tuning lever for the piano and intends to tune it himself. I will gladly lend him my Korg tuner which is extremely accurate.
I have two questions: first because he has never done this before can tuning a piano be dangerous. I've heard that a cracked soundboard can implode. Even though the many notes are about a minor second flat and wouldn'r require significant tightening of the strings, I'm still concerned that my absent minded friend might do something foolish.
Second, how exactly does one tune a piano. For the middle and high register of the keyboard each note has three strings. Would each string be tuned to the same pitch? For example A 440. This note has three strings would all of them be tuned to 440? I've heard that that would create a bright sound whereas if you tuned one string 440, the second 440.1 and the third 440.2 then you would get a richer tone.
I would love for him to tune this beautiful piano so that I and my fellow wind players are not subjected to this misery.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-09-28 20:32
If the piano is as much as a minor second flat, I believe that a professional tuner would not bring it up all at once. They would do this in at least two stages, allowing it to "stretch" a bit so that they wouldn't risk snapping the strings and to end up with a more stable result. At least that's what I was told when I had a piano tuned.
To neglect a piano of the quality of a Bösendorfer should be considered a crime.
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Author: Bob Arney
Date: 2001-09-28 21:19
Suggestion: Shame the rich fellow. Collect from all your wind/chamber groups and have it done. Tell him it is a present to him to preserve your own sanity. Hemi-demi-semi quavers set your teeth on edge.
Bob A
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Author: Mindy's Mom
Date: 2001-09-28 21:36
My brother is a professional tuner and technician and I know that he would not bring it up that much all at once. As to tuning the notes that 2-3 strings, you must have two little rubber things that you use to "turn off" the outside strings so that you can start with the inside one. After tuning ALL the notes with just the inside string, you go back and shut off just one string and tune the open string with teh first tuned string. Do all of them that way and go back and tune the OTHER open sting. After all these are done it is "tweeked". You only use the Korg tuner for the inside strings. I would suggest that he NOT do this on his own until he LEARNS how to do it. One of the biggest problems is not so much the soundboard breaking (although it can happen) but broken strings and usually you need to replace ALL the strings if one breaks.
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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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Author: Registered Piano Techncian
Date: 2001-09-29 02:22
The best thing he can do is call in a qualified technician.
A proper tunning hammer that will not damage the pins cost more then a tuning.
If the piano has been neglected that long it likely needs other service, regulation, voicing,
seating strings on bridge, lubrication........
Yes he could damage it.
A little information can be a dangerous thing.
There are many pitfalls he does not know about.
I've seen people having read about tightening loose pins by driving them in, drive
in pins without a pinblock support, and delaminate...destroy the pinblock.
We can not tune a piano well with a Korg tunner.
Its even difficult with a state of the art $2000 Sat 3 or cybertuner.
Even with these popular pro-machines, many human judgments are still required..
Clarinet harmonics may be in tune, but piano harmonics may go 0. +2,+6.+12, +16,+22
and must have a stretch curve.
No problem bringing it up in one session, but in two passes...double tunning.
IF...IF the strings, and structure is OK. This is a 1.5 hr job for the double tuning part.
He has a very valuable piano, one of the few things that can last generations,
and still work. One of the few things out great grandchildren may inherit, and
still enjoy. And in 50 years it may be worth many times what he paid for it,
or he can let it become landfill.
Dave Renaud
RPT
Piano Technicians Guild
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-09-29 15:10
Lisa -
There's a *lot* more to tuning a piano than just matching an eletronic tuner. There was a great thread on this on the Klarinet board a couple of years ago, in which Dave Renaud explained "stretch" tuning and why each piano needs to be tuned individually to match its own particular resonances.
Dave - could you please post links to your earlier mini-dissertations?
Dave is clearly the expert, and I don't want to poach on his territory, but piano tuners have told me that even mechanically, there's a lot of non-obvious things you have to know. For example, tuners work from the side of the piano, rather than sitting on the bench, because the tuning hammer (the wrench used to turn the pins) has to be parallel to the keyboard and has to be turned without any diagonal pressure. If there is, or if the handle is perpendicular to the keyboard, this reams out the sockets in which the pins are seated, and the pins will not hold.
Not to mention that the action and the hammers will probably need adjustment after being neglected for years, and this is also a job for an expert.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-09-29 17:07
"He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool....."
This applies to your friend, unless he has an excellent understanding of the repercussions of the "piano harmonics may go 0. +2,+6.+12, +16,+22
and must have a stretch curve" and other items that Registered Piano Tuner mentioned.
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Author: Dave Renaud
Date: 2001-09-29 18:31
As requested...from the archives, there is more in the archives if interested
Interestingly, I have a Rolland U220 whose best,
most realistic, purest, piano samples, have some
slightly bad unisons, & the temperament is not quite
perfect. Perhaps an attempt to woe the public into
believing this is a great realistic piano sound. Stretch
is incorporated into it's tuning. Since they are sampling
and digitally recording real piano tones that have sharp
harmonic content, it is part of the inherent piano sound,
digitally stored, or real. Octaves must be stretched to
some degree beyond theoretical for them to work.
All piano tuning has some amount of stretch. Some technicians
favor higher a partials then other. So there is an accepted, range
of stretch. Perhaps some keyboards allow a super stretched
tuning vs. normal, but I have never seen it.
Stretch is established right of the level of setting the temperament.
The first temperament octave set to pure 4:2 coincidental partials
produces
less stretch then setting in pure at the 6:3 coincidental partial level.
More stretch will give more pure double octaves, at the expense of
single
octaves, less stretch gives more pure single octaves at the expense of
double- triple octaves. Also a wider stretch produces fasts thirds
within
the temperament octave, and less octave stretch, slower thirds. So you
can have two perfect equal temperaments produced on the same piano
with that are different by virtue of having to accommodate a slightly
different octave widths.
In concert halls where a very wide range of the
keyboard is used, more projection is wanted in the top end, plus a
better quality large instrument gives tighter cleaner harmonic series,
a technician can takes advantage of the instrument to stretch pure
at higher coincidental partial levels without comprimising single
octaves so much. Some "Steinway" technicians promote tuning pure
5ths(not slightly narrowed as in equal temperment) as they leave the
mid. temperament area all the way up the treble, producing a
"super stretched" tuning. This gives a very pure outer fifth, but lots
of bite to the inner thirds as you go up.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-09-29 18:37
I've been taught by my RPT to clean up minor problems on my piano (a unison that's slightly out, for instance) and made sure I had the right tools to do the job ... but I'd not attempt to tune it for fear, not so much breaking it, but of making it sound horrible. Even touching up a unison can take someone like me more time than you'd think.
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Author: Peter
Date: 2001-09-30 04:19
With all due respect to you:
Frankly, I find your "problem" inconsequential. It's not your piano and if this person is enough of a fool and/or miser to act in the manner you describe, you should consider staying out of his business!
While I agree that it is a shameful waste to treat such an instrument in such a way, it really is none of your business beyond advising him to do the "right" thing, and not that big a deal to not stick around to have to listen to the awful sounding piano.
Furthermore, if you "take up a collection" to get his piano tuned, you are falling right into his ploy. You don't give more candy to a child who just ate ten candy bars and you don't take money out of your pocket to help some _____ miser (who probably has much more than you do) save more money.
If he wants to trash the piano, it's his piano to trash and I don't see the trauma this should cause you personally.
Among several wealthy friends I've had, I had a particular one many years ago who was a multi-millionaire.
He once traveled to another state to visit me and sight-see wearing a pair of shoes with holes in the toes. I asked him why he would embarrass himself thus and he told me that shoes were expensive.
He never went anywhere with more than a few dollars in his pocket and carried fruit and water with him everywhere he went; he never ate or drank anything else unless someone else paid for it. (He was very quick to tell you he never needed anything more than his fruit and water, and quicker yet to accept anything anyone else paid for!)
Coming from a wealthy family myself, and according to my wife, never having had "any respect for money," (meaning I throw it away all the time,) I could not abide such misery in a person, and still can't.
The best advise I can give you is that unless your livelihood or some similar thing totally depends on this person, you should get rid of that friend. Friends like that can only cost you money.
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Author: Lisa Chien
Date: 2001-10-02 20:47
Thank you all for your responses. Well the story continues. I printed out this thread and showed our frugal friend. In his typical German aristocratic tone he said, "Vell, if you sink zat it sounds so bad, zen I will have it tuned professionally!" He had it tuned this morning. The tuner said that it is a truly wonderful piano and should have been better cared for. However, no serious damage had occured and after a regimen of maintenance will be in top shap.
(Part of the reason why I intervened was because I knew that if he had started fiddling around with this fine instrument that I would be ruined.) But even after this first tuning one can hear very clearly that his Bösendorfer is a truly beautiful piano, especially the bass.
The amazing thing is that our frugal friend cannot hear the difference! He sat down, played part of a short piece by Chopin and looked at me and asked, "I don't hear anysing different.""I don't know what he did! I pay all zis money and zehr is no diffenence!" Can you imagine? The tuner and I were dumbfounded.
His playing is technically excellent but now I really don't know what to think of his comment. As a clarinetist I know I am meticulous about tone and tuning. So are my other clarinet players; we are not wind machines blowing at the same velocity with the same embouchure and expect to get the perfect note. Often, every single note requires minute adjustments. Yet he plays his piano tapping away at the notes without any concern for tuning. This baffles me.
Just as an aside: have people noticed that certain instruments foster an enhanced or diminished sense of tuning. The string players are always fastidious about tuning while the oboists, by virture of a fixed reed, really can't adjust pitch. And pianists often seem the least bothered by poor tuning. Any coments?
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-10-02 22:16
Lisa Chien wrote:
>
> And
> pianists often seem the least bothered by poor tuning.
You must be joking! The pianists I know are all very particlar about the tuning and voicing of their pianos.
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Author: Dave Renaud
Date: 2001-10-02 23:57
Mark
As a piano technician I see both sides.
Yes, many halls and musicians have fine instruments and are very particular about
caring for them.
But since piano, unlike many instruments, gives pitch for free, pianists don't have
to set pitch of each note as part of performance practice as violinist, singers,
clarinetists must. Therefore, some piano players end up literally learning not to listen.
For example:
Last week I tuned a Yamaha U1 purchased new 12 years ago.
They never ever had it tuned since the store did it. It was 100 cents
flat, screaming dissonant unisons, and compleatly unplayable, about as bad as it gets.
When I finished I was told the owner was a local music teacher that
has been teaching students on it for years.
A few years ago I had a similar siduation with a "full time"music teacher that had
purchased a baby grand, and finally decided to tune it years later. The unisions
were deadly. She called me back because "it was worst then before". I tune for
concert halls, and recording, and know better, but went back to educate myself
as to what was going on. As I test played the piano I was very pleased with myself,
it really sounded good even though it came up over a semitone. I had made three passes
on it because she was a music teacher, and I was concered about its stability.
She said NO NO NO, that is just fine, it is this interval, and showed me a minor nineth.
She had a Beethoven piece with a minor nineth in it and said the interval had to be wrong.
Now that the unsions were focused dead on, she could finally hear a minor nineth
as it should be without the clouded unisions, and had no clue how dissonant this interval is.
She had never really heard one before.
She teaches to a grade 10 conservatroy level.
So.......yes many pianists have fine ears,
but many others have trained themselves not to listen.
Perhaps due to taking lessons from teachers as described above
, or by practicing on horrible instruments they tuned out long ago.
After 20 years of tuning, I am still surprised from time to time.
Parents, tune those pianos, don't damage your children's ears
Cheers
Dave Renaud
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