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Chapter 2-1 CHAPTER TWO TUNING TECHNIQUE The first step in learning the mechanics of tuning is procuring the necessary tools. A list of supply houses is provided to enrolled students. It is quite an education in itself just to browse through these catalogs. I can provide you with a basic tuning kit which is all you really need to learn tuning (see order form). Later on you may want to upgrade to a more professional Tuning Ham- mer, but this kit will suffice through your learning stage. Tuning can be learned with the least expensive tuning ham- mer. I will tell you what you absolutely must obtain, and you will decide in time what else you may want. You WILL need: 1. A tuning lever (usually called a tuning hammer) 2. A tuning fork or tuning bar 3. A felt temperament strip 4. A few felt or rubber mutes (I use rubber) The tuning kit I can provide for you includes these items. If you already have the necessary tools, we will begin by preparing the piano for tuning. The first thing to do is to lift the lid and then remove the top front panel. This can normally be removed by releasing the catches on the left and right sides. Some panels are attached with screws and others are a hinge type. In any case, it will be apparent once you look inside. If you are learning on a grand piano, you will need to remove the music shelf which is directly above the tuning pins in front of the piano. This usually just slides out, but some grands have a notch in the shelf requiring you to lift it out. This discussion will, for the most part be referring to vertical pianos, but the grand is tuned in the same manner, and the few differences in technique will either be apparent or I will point them out as we go along. In front of you will be the ACTION, the strings, the metal plate and approximately 220 TUNING PINS. Recall from chapter one that the strings to your right (treble strings) will be three to a note. The strings (bass) to the left of the middle will be two to a note and the bottom 10 or so will be single string. Chapter 2-2 The tuning pins are approximately 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 inches long and are made of steel which has been "blued" and in some cases nickel plated for appearance. They are driven into a block of laminated hard wood (usually maple) until there is approximately one inch showing. You can see that the music wire is put through or "eye" of the pin and then wrapped to form at least three coils. Now, take off the very bottom panel so you can observe the strings from below. This panel usually can be removed by lifting up on the hinges on the top and pulling forward. The treble wire is put into the eye of one tuning pin, wrapped around the HITCH PIN at the bottom and then put through the eye of the next tuning pin. Note that one length of wire makes up TWO of the three strings for each treble note. Carefully follow the wire from pin to pin and familiarize yourself with the way a piano is strung. The copper wound lower strings are all just one string to one hitch pin as you can see. Before you leave your examination of the strings, observe how the string is placed between the metal pins on the block of wood directly above the hitch pins. These pins are the BRIDGE PINS and the block of wood in which they are driven is called the BRIDGE. There are two bridges, one for the treble strings and one for the bass strings. The bridge pins give the strings what is referred to as SIDE BEARING which helps to keep them steady on the bridge, while the purpose of the BRIDGE is to transmit the vibrations of the string to the SOUNDBOARD on which it is mounted. One more piece of knowledge you should know at this point. Follow the string from just above the bridge to just below it. The string should rise up to the bridge on the top side and come down from the bridge on the down side. This is called DOWN BEARING. To review briefly the above discussion: The string is put through the eye of one tuning pin, stretched down over the bridge between the bridge pins, wrapped around the hitch pin, and then brought up and through the eye of the next tuning pin and secured. A complete discussion on the proce- dure of putting on a string is given in a later chapter. For now, an overview is all that is necessary. In order to proceed with the actual tuning process, you must have a piano that is relatively free of any major problems. The action must work adequately and the moving parts must not make excessive noise that will hamper your hearing of the vibrating string. Assuming the piano is satisfactory, we will move on. Locate the note C-40. It will be a white key approxi- mately in the center of the keyboard. Press the key and watch the hammer go toward the strings and hit all three Chapter 2-3 strings causing them to vibrate. Now look at the chart of pitch frequencies (Appendix B) and find that C-40 vibrates at approximately 262 cycles per second. Since there are three strings on this note, each one should be vibrating at the same rate. This is hypothetical of course because unless the piano was just tuned, the strings will not be perfectly in tune with each other. Let us just say that if they were in tune they would each be beating at approximate- ly 262 C.P.S. (actually 261.626). As was explained in chapter one, it is impossible to hear beat rates that fast. We are now going to go through as exercise that will explain how we listen for beats. Take two rubber mutes and insert one on the left side of the strings of C-40 and insert the other one on the right side. They will be held in place by being wedged between the note we are on and the one just below and just above. Now when you strike the string by pressing the key, just the CENTER string of C-40 will vibrate. Listen to the sound. You should hear a pure sound with no vibrations at all. Now, take the left mute out and again strike the two strings. If the note is not perfectly in tune, you will hear a different sound than before. You are probably hear- ing vibrations caused by the left string beating at slightly more or less than 262 C.P.S. Place your tuning hammer on the tuning pin that holds the left string of the note. It will be the one at the top of the bank of three pins. The hammer should be placed on the pin with the handle as close to straight up as possible. If it won't go on in the straight up position, go toward the left rather than the right and put it on the pin securely. Now wrap your hand around the handle so it feels com- fortable, and place your elbow (if you can) on the top of the piano. The point to be made here is that is very diffi- cult to tune "free handed". Find some way to steady your arm by using some part of the piano. Make sure the hammer is as far on the pin as it can go and then very slightly turn the hammer toward the LEFT. Now strike the note again and it should sound very out of tune. When you turn the pin toward the left it loosens the string and when you turn it to the right it will tighten it. The left string should now be "flat" to the middle string. Now start VERY SLOWLY bringing the left string up to the pitch of the middle string by turning it to the right. Each time you make an adjustment, strike the note and listen to the difference. The goal here is to adjust the tension of the left string so that when the two strings are struck, they will sound as one. Mute off the left string again and listen to the sound of just the center string sounding alone. This is the sound you are after. Chapter 2-4 It is very easy to bring the string up too far and go over the pitch of the center string. BE CAREFUL, it is possible to put too much tension on a string causing it to break. Go SLOWLY, and strike the note constantly until both strings are vibrating at the same rate. After you have the two strings "in tune" with each other you can start learning how to listen for beats. Let's assume that the two strings are sounding at 262 C.P.S. If we lower (turn to the left) the left hand string until we can hear beats, we can count how many beats we can hear in one second. It is recommended that you practice with a stop watch or metronome until you can accurately determine how long a second is. A very good exercise for this is to start the stop watch and count to 60. See how close you are to 60 seconds. When you can get it to where you are counting 59,60 or 61, you are ready. HINT: I learned to recognize the length of a second by thinking over and over "I AM GOING TO TUNE" in a normal fairly quick pace. This phrase should take a second to think. Test your pace with a second hand until you can say the phrase as close to 60 times a minute as you can. Tune the two strings once more so they are sounding the same (in unison). Now adjust the left string by turning it to the left until you hear beats. You just EASE it to the left - it doesn't take much. At this point don't concern yourself as to how many beats per second you are hearing. Stop as soon as you can hear what could be described as a PULSE beating at regular intervals. Listen until you can count these beats/pulses/vibrations. Once you can count them, see if you can determine how many you hear in one second. Adjust the left string until you can hear 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8 beats per second. This could take many hours of practice. The audio tapes provided to students will save you a great deal of time, but if you do not yet have these, don't give up. All of a sudden, if you are persistent, you will realize that you are hearing the beats. This may take hours, or a few days, but until you can hear and count the beats, no progress can be made. REMEMBER, always strike the note after each adjustment. A very, very small movement of the tuning hammer will great- ly change the pitch. When you are adjusting the tension on the strings, it is important to turn the tuning hammer left and right NOT in and out. It is possible to bend or even break the tuning pins if the hammer is not used properly. Chapter 2-5 SETTING THE PIN After you have learned to manipulate the tuning hammer and set the pitch properly, the next technique to master is the "setting of the pin". Recall the previous discussions of the tuning pin, pin block, path of the string and characteristics of a piano wire. All these factors have to be taken into consideration when we "turn" the tuning pin to adjust the pitch. First, the piano you are called upon to tune perhaps has not been tuned for at least six months and more likely a lot longer. My experience with new customers is that their piano has not been tuned for up to fifteen years or more. This means that the pins have "settled into their little niche and will become very stubborn when moved to a new location. The string (wire) also has formed a comfortable posi- tion around the hitch pin, the bridge pins and all other points of friction. In other words, changing the position of the pin or wire will be met with a great deal of resist- ance. If you merely pull the string up to pitch (if it is flat) or lower it down to pitch (if it is sharp) and then leave it, it will surely try to go back to its natural habitat very quickly. The recommended way to compensate for this natural tendency is to pull the string a little over the pitch (if it is flat) or a little under pitch (if it is sharp) and then ease it back up or down until it is in tune. This technique (setting the pin) is one that will only come with time and practice, but you must understand that a quality tuning will not result until it is mastered. One more important element in the setting of the pin is giving the string a solid blow just before and after you feel the pin has been "set". This hard blow will settle the strings and result in a SOLID tuning. If, after you give the string a solid blow, it goes sharp or flat, then you must repeat the process of setting the pin until a solid blow will not change the pitch of the string. The more out of tune a piano is, the more important this procedure be- comes. A SOLID BLOW means pressing the key down hard (not hitting the string with something). I'm sure you assumed that (but you never know). I was teaching a class at a local music store a couple of years ago, and after explain- ing this procedure, a student asked what tool was needed to hit the strings with. I immediately made a mental note to add this paragraph in the next revision of the manual. Chapter 2-6 THE TUNING FORK Up to now, you have not been introduced to a way to get a reference note to begin your practice. A TUNING FORK is a `U' shaped bar of steel that gives out a pure tone (without partials) when you strike it against a solid substance. The tuning forks used by most tuners are tuned to sound the frequencies of C-52 (523.252 C.P.S.), A-49 (440), or F-33 (349.228). The tuning fork used for this course is the C-52. If you have this fork , hold it by the stem - strike it against your knee - place the stem inside your ear - close your ear lobe with your finger and listen. You will be hearing a pure tone sounding at the pitch at which you will now tune C-52 on your piano. Mute off the two outside strings of C-52 as previously explained. Place the tuning hammer on the center tuning of C-52. Sound the tuning fork by the procedure described above and then adjust the tension of the string to match the sound of the fork. After you have the center string of C-52 sounding with the tuning fork, remove the left mute. Put the tuning hammer on the UPPER tuning pin of C-52 and tune it as described a couple of pages back. Now that you have the center and left strings of C-52 sounding the same, take the right mute out. Place the tuning hammer on the LOWER tuning pin and tune the right string to the two others. You now have the note C-52 per- fectly in tune. You just tuned a UNISON. Mute off the two outer strings of C-52 once more so that only the "tuned" center string sounds when struck. Locate C-40 on the piano and mute off the other strings the same way. Place your tuning hammer on the center string of C-40 and then strike C-52 and C-40 together. Chances are that the two notes C-40 and C-52 (comprising an octave) do not sound in tune. Listen very closely to the two strings vibrating to- gether. Try and hear the beats. If you cannot hear beats, turn the pin to the left and see if the sound becomes worse. If so, C-40 is FLAT to C-52. Now, gradually turn the pin to the right. Remember to strike the key after each adjust- ment. Keep this up until you can hear an identifiable beat. Listen as you adjust for the beats to get slower and slower. When they stop, you have just tuned an octave. If the beats get slower and slower and then begin to get faster, you have gone over the pitch. Turn the hammer to the left and once again get below the pitch. Then begin again until you completely STOP the beats. Now SET THE PIN as previously described. Chapter 2-7 Pull out the left mute - tune the string to the center string - pull out the right mute and tune the right string to the other two strings and you now have all the strings of C-52 and C-40 in tune. Strike the two notes together and once again listen for beats. If there are any, you must retrace your steps and adjust until you have a BEATLESS octave. In this chapter you learned: 1. Tools needed 2. Nomenclature of parts affecting the tuning process 3. Muting of strings 4. Tuning hammer technique 5. How to listen for beats 6. How to set the pin 7. How to use the tuning fork 8. How to tune unisons and octaves We have now laid the foundation for the most important part this course - SETTING THE TEMPERAMENT OCTAVE (chapter three). If you have learned (and practiced) the procedures presented up to now, you should be able to get through this phase with your sanity intact. If the following chapter blows your mind completely, please don't cut this disk in half, kick the dog and go off to the nearest tavern. BACK UP - take a break - then review the first two chapters. If you are like me, you may have jumped ahead thinking you can learn how to tune without all this grief. SORRY! I tried it many years ago and wasted a lot of valu- able time by thinking I could do it the "easy way". There is really no "easy way" to learn tuning. Howev- er, I believe you will find that this course will show you the "easiest" way. Now, lets either "back up" if necessary, or proceed on to chapter three. Many "mysteries" await! Press P to print this chapter or ESC for the main menu.