A single piano key sets into motion a set of 3 strings, all set in motion by the same hammer and all tuned, ideally, to the exact same pitch. This collection of 3 strings is called a unison. One usually sets a temperment by muting off 2 of the 3 strings in each unison over the temperment octave. This allows you to really focus on specific individual partials between the note you are tuning and the note you are tuning from. This is usually done by threading a thick felt strip between each of the unisons, muting the outside string of each. You then tune the center string as the reference. Setting a temperment is a really process of adjusting 12 variables, each of the strings in the octave. making those fine adjustments is considered much easier to do with one string at a time, and then, when you are satisfied, you tune each of the other strings (left and right) to the center one.

Now, there are different techniques. One way is to mute off the entire piano, listening to a total of 2 strings at a time. But as with a lot of things, less is often considered more. The macho tuner claims to use 1, or maybe 2 individual mutes. The implication and reality is that that tuner is so sure of where that single string is set, that he can tune the other 2 to it and be confident that he won’t need to come back and adjust it slightly later. It sounds like hubris but when you see it done by the right person, you come away thinking that there was no other position for any of the strings, that that person set them exactly where they were meant to be.

This assumes a very high skill level and a piano that is extremely well tuned to begin with. But it also compliments the notion that very high level tuning takes into account all 3 strings of any unison as an integral part of the overall sound of that piano. By muting off you’re taking out of consideration a key part of resulting piano sound so how could your tuning possibly be optimized?

All it takes is practice.

New brigde cap

I haven’t tuned a piano in a year and before that probably 2, so I’m rusty. The skills of tuning stay with you, like riding a bike. The facility and confidence, however, have to be painstakingly, patiently rebuilt.

Tuning is a very physical activity. You are forcing a stout metal pin, which has been driven tightly into a block of wood and is under great tension, to move a very precise and tiny amount. The movement required starts with the back, shoulder and arm and ends with the wrists and fingertips as the pin is gently nudged into proper position. The final positioning of the pin is really manipulating the twist in the pin rather than causing it to move in the wood.

The actual note you hear from a piano is comprised of up to three separate strings (under special circumstances 4). The vibration pattern emitted by each of these 3 strings is very complex and actually consists of a number of softer individual tones which are subdivisions, or partials of the note being struck. These partials, sounding together when struck by the piano hammer, appear to our ears as a single note. Piano tuning requires one to listen to these individual, very specific subdivisions of a single piano string. The more a piano is in tune, the more these sound like one note, one rich, dynamic, note. The more it is out of tune the more harsh, brittle and generally aggravating it sounds. Like any skill, training your ear to hear partials can be done by just about anybody, after a great deal of time and practice.

Inharmonicity
Tuning a piano is actually the act of putting it precisely out of tune. Because of the stiffness of the steel in a piano string, the partials, or subdivisions of a particular note, are all slightly out of tune. The condition is called inharmonicity. While any string demonstrates this condition to some degree, it is the stiff steel strings of a piano that are most difficult and critical because of the range of the piano. The equations tell us that the strong partials or harmonics of a low copper wrapped bass string should be exactly in tune with the same pitch being emitted by a string far up the scale of the piano. But that stiffness in the string makes the correct mathematical relationship impossible to obtain. This means that the tuner is actually striving for a pleasing compromise where the errors in the relationship between the harmonics are spread evenly over the keyboard.

You can think of the way an ear is used in tuning by comparing it to something like Where’s Waldo or the hidden image pictures that were so popular recently. These puzzles require you to use your eye in a very conscious way, looking at something one way, then another hoping the target will pop out. When tuning, you are using your ear to examine the various different combination of partials between two notes, the one you are tuning and the one you are tuning too. You focus your concentration on one combination, possibly another to check, then the whole pattern of sound because just having one set of partials in tune is not enough if the tuning still sounds wrong.

The various methods of tuning a piano are essentially endless and once you start listening critically, the variance in tuning among tuners is substantial. Again like any profession, there are the hacks, the tradesmen and the artists. To tune a concert piano effectively one must tune at the level of an artist which means adjusting the different components so the tuning is actually optimized for the piano, artist and environment. It is possible, in skilled hands, for the tuning to augment a performance, to add something positive to it. This is something like a Formula 1 racing engine, tuned and optimized for one single event.

The temperment
The process usually starts with setting the first reference octave, called the temperment, to which all the other notes will be tuned. This temperment octave starts with a reference from a tuning fork and then is manipulated and fussed with until it sounds a very specific way in a series of checks and tests. These checks focus on vibrational patterns that when identified and recognized, divide the 12 notes of the temperment octave into generally equal parts. These checks and tests do not take into account any musical characteristic. This technique results in a generally serviceable tuning that works with most modern pianos and is relatively quick to perform. It is hardly meant to optimize a piano on it’s own because most customers can’t hear the difference and certainly don’t want to pay anything more for it.

Concert tuning is different.

But here I am, with a rusty ear, rustier joints and a howling collection of steel and wood, far from a piano. And man, I am not into struggling with this. So I set a basic temperment that roughly fits all the basic checks. You don’t have to be too picky here because the new strings are still stretching and won’t stay in tune for long anyway. I have a Reyburn Cybertuner that would have been great for the first 6 tunings or so, but my HP Ipaq on which I ran Cybertuner and the GPS system TomTom crashed and besides, I have to get the ear back in shape anyway…how hard can it be?

F-uped bridge notching

Originally I just needed my piano restrung, a pretty straight ahead job if you’re a restringer so made sense to have it done. Long story short, the piano ended up in his shop to have bridge capped because the bearing needed resetting. No problem here, I agreed with everything. But this is also where he screwed me by doing to most bulls**t job of bridge notching I have ever seen.The problem is that once a bridge is notched, there is not much room to do it over.

So, the piano is with my friends at PianoWorks in Atlanta, having the bridge recapped and the whole thing restrung. Crap, maybe at the end of this I’ll finally have a real piano to send to my new pad in Charleston.

I took a good wack at making progress on my piano. I fine tuned the key level, then went over the hammer line, drop and let off before taking a critical bash at keydip. AT LAST, it’s beginning to feel like a piano! Yes, uneven as hell, but at least there is aftertouch.

I’m keeping a pretty good eye on the humidifier. I’ve got 3 hygrometers scattered around and am keeping things between 40% and 50%. Still, the tuning drifts (at least to my ear…being a piano tuner can be a curse) so I spent some time tuning the other day. Rather than just do the quick fix with the standard settings in the RCT, I spent some critical time getting my ear back for aural temperaments.

Of course, by the time that was done, I had little patience for voicing, so took a couple of jabs to get the edge off and put everything back. What I really need are 2 solid 8 hour days, but that probably won’t happen soon…nobody’s paying me!

One observation: the standard tunings that come in these things stretch the octaves way too much for my ear. I think it  is really the drift in the country towards the loud, harsh sound you hear so often. I just don’t think the octaves on a concert grand should beat…it’s just not natural or musical. When I check my aural octaves to the standard tuning in the RCT, I’m flat by a very consistent, and very small amount. Must be my Viennese training.

I took Ferdinand Braeu, the Bosendorfer technical director to see a class by Albert Sanderson, the grand old man of electronic tuning. When it was all done Ferdinand leaned over and whispered “it just sounds out of tune to me” and to me too.

Al tuned it exactly the way he wanted to and the way most people in the room expected. Just too much stretch for us.

Anyway sent in an order to PianoTek without totaling it….$360!! So I had to remove the coolest stuff for now, those key weighting weights in the wooden box, the instant hygrometer and the digital tape measure…damn! I need balance and front rail punchings more.

So, about 3 years ago I decided to replace the original overvoiced stock Yamaha CFIII hammers with a new set. First decision, replace with what? Since I wisely figured that my first hanging job would not be my best, I bought a set from Wally Brooks…the make of which I really can’t remember (deep red underfelt). I know that is herasy to hammer buffs (what??!!! I suppose you don’t remember your MOM’s name either!!). I had Wally drill them and I hung on the original shanks.

Well, let’s just say my hammer hanging was pretty dismal. They sound pretty good, but the job is cosmetically challenged.  I’ve done a couple sets since then and my skills have gotten much much better, but that first set was an experience. Not as easy as it looks. I took one of Richard Davenports classes some time ago and he made it clear that to do a professional hammer hanging job takes alot of time, equipment and skill.

The GX series are experimental and the short lived 51 share a number of very specific technical traits of another company & Sons. It was not the nicest of the ones I had to select from, but these technical features hooked me for the sake of novelty. The problem is that when you own a concert grand and one is a piano technician, ones piano should be in good condition, which has lead to all kinds of frustration and anguish.

I’ll go into that later, but I have begun the process of trying to get it into some kind of concert level shape, starting with basic key work. This should go into the Please God, Get A Life category, since this was my Friday night!