Cream of the Crop 1

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Chapter 5-1 CHAPTER FIVE PITCH RAISING AND LOWERING All pianos are now manufactured to be tuned to the standard pitch of A-440. This simply means that the note A-49 will sound at 440 cycles per second when properly tuned. Pianos that are much lower in pitch than the standard will sound lifeless or dull. The strings do not have the tension necessary to produce the correct piano sound. You have heard people say that the piano is too old and the sound is "tinny" or other descriptive words. The fact of the matter is that an old piano can sound just as good and sometimes better than many new ones when tuned correctly. If the piano is 1/2 step or more below the standard pitch and the unisons are also out of tune, it will obviously produce the "BARROOM" sound associated with old pianos. If there is no mechanical problem which prevents the piano from being brought up to pitch and tuned, you should have no problem in having a satisfied customer when you are through. As a matter of fact, many older pianos, when tuned to pitch will produce a better sound than newer pianos. CAUTION: Always tighten the plate bolts and look over the entire piano for defects that may prohibit a pitch raising. Test a few tuning pins to see if they have the necessary torque to hold the extra tension you will be applying. Pianos that are sharp to the standard pitch are putting more stress on the plate than it was built to withstand. Although there is less probability of breaking strings when lowering the pitch, it nevertheless is just as time consum- ing as raising the pitch. WHY PIANOS GO OUT OF TUNE If I've heard it once I have heard it hundreds of times - "I didn't know pianos had to be tuned that often"! Most of your new customers have no idea how often or even IF pianos need tuning. You should spend at least five minutes trying to educate your customer. It will pay off in obtain- ing more regular tunings. A number of factors are involved in causing a piano to go out of tune. You will hear many times that the reason the customer waited so long to have the piano tuned is that no one ever played it. They think that playing the piano is the only reason it will go out of tune. Although this is one cause, it certainly is not the main one. Chapter 5-2 Changes in temperature or humidity have a drastic affect on the stability of the pitch. Pianos have a tenden- cy to go sharp in high humidity and flat in low humidity. You will find that a late summer tuning in a high humidity area will (IF the piano is tuned regularly) occasionally require a pitch lowering, whereas a late winter tuning may require a pitch raising. If the piano is of good quality and is serviced regularly, the pitch should not be terribly off, but you will see that this will be rule rather than the exception to some degree. If a piano is let stand from year to year without being tuned, it will go through numerous rises and falls. The result usually is a lowering of pitch. It will normally fall more than it will rise from season to season. Obviously, the same piano will react differently de- pending on the atmospheric conditions in which it is placed. In a modern house, with modern controls for temperature and humidity, a piano will stay in tune much longer than it would in a house with little or no insulation and poor temperature controls. Years ago, little could be done to alleviate this prob- lem. Some piano owners kept pots of water in the bottom of the piano and a number of potted plants in the area during the dry months. During the high humidity months, light bulbs were put in the bottom of the piano to draw out the humidity. Today, there are humidity control systems sold by the supply houses that greatly reduce this problem. Pianos with these systems still require regular tunings, but they will not go out nearly as fast or nearly as far in a normal tuning interval of six months. I never fail to recommend these systems to my custom- ers. Not only will you make a profit on the installation (up to $150.00), you will have easier tunings from then on. The customer benefits because the piano will always be very close in tune if it is serviced regularly. Everybody wins. One major problem that you encounter while tuning that is caused by fluctuations in humidity is tuning pins that are too tight or too loose. Pins that are too tight are very difficult to set and pins that are too loose are impos- sible to set. Regardless of the reasons for pianos going out of tune, our job is to put them in tune. PITCH RAISING I will begin with the recommended procedure to raise the pitch since this will occur more frequently than a pitch lowering. Chapter 5-3 A number of factors must be weighed before you attempt to raise the pitch of a piano. These include: 1. The age of piano 2. The condition of the piano 3. How far down in pitch the piano is A new piano should be tuned at least four times the first year. It has been my experience that hardly anyone other than manufacturers and technicians are aware of this fact. Some sales personnel understand this, but are reluc- tant to tell their customers. I can only assume that since this fact will add the cost of the tunings to the price of the piano, they are afraid of losing the sale. A sad situa- tion, but I'm afraid it is too often true. My hat is off to those respectable merchants who not only tell their customers of the importance of those first four tunings, but also provide at least one or two of them without cost. I personally believe they would sell more pianos this way. A new piano that has only been tuned once and then let stand for a few years is much harder to tune than an older piano that has been tuned regularly over the years. This is usually very difficult to explain to a customer. You will find the newer piano that has not been tuned will require more frequent tunings for the first couple of years than you would normally recommend. You possibly will not have string breakage or structure problems as you may on an older instrument, but the tuning stability will take some time to establish. An older piano presents a number of interesting prob- lems. Let's take a hypothetical situation and work it out. A tuner just received a call from a potential customer and it goes something like this. CUSTOMER: How much do you charge for a tuning? TECHNICIAN: Let me ask you a few questions and see if I can answer that without inspecting your piano. What kind of piano do you own? CUSTOMER: An old one that has been in the family for years. TECHNICIAN: Is it an upright or a grand? CUSTOMER: What is the difference? TECHNICIAN: Explains... CUSTOMER: I guess it is an upright TECHNICIAN: How long has it been since it has been tuned? Chapter 5-4 CUSTOMER: (long pause) It doesn't seem to be too far out but I guess it has been eight or nine years. (At this point, you should assume that it has been much longer). TECHNICIAN: Explain that it is possible the piano has gone so far out of tune that it may take more than one tuning to get it up to pitch. Outline charges. CUSTOMER: They either say O.K. or that they will call back. We will assume they say O.K. An appointment is set and upon arrival we find: A piano that obviously has not seen a technician for many, many moons, if ever. We also find that every picture and ornament imaginable is piled on top of the piano. She/He says, "I didn't know you had to lift up the top???" Eventually, you get the lid up and the top panel off. You see strange things inside. Paper clips, hair pins, traces of varmint residue, some rust on the strings and tuning pins, some moth eaten hammers... At this point it is hard not to deliver a lecture on the merits of regular service - DON"T! That is the quickest way I know of to lose a customer. They do not want to hear how delinquent they have been. They only want to know if you can fix it for nothing. Now, it is recommended that you inform the customer of all the problems you see and explain that tuning the piano will not necessarily take care of them. This is sometimes hard to do, because the average owner cannot understand that tuning and repair/regulation are separate operations. However, do the best you can because if you tune the piano without any other work being done and they start playing it, the other problems will surely surface. The customer says to "just tune it" and we will worry about the repair work later. This is fine if all the ham- mers hit the strings, the tuning pins are tight enough and the strings are all there. Also, you will check the bridges to ensure they are not cracked and will withstand a tuning. We will now assume the piano CAN be tuned in spite of any other mechanical problems. You must now (if you haven't already) determine just how far down in pitch the piano is. Once you determine this, you will be able to tell the customer the procedure neces- sary and approximately the charge required. Explain that it is always possible that some strings may break and this would require an extra charge. Chapter 5-5 NOTE: In the section on minor piano repair which is on the "BUSINESS" disk, you will receive instruction on how to make most of the minor repairs necesary in the customers home. String replacement is discussed in Chapter six of this book. There are a number of ways to accurately determine the pitch of the piano and I will briefly describe them. After experimentation, you will decide which method you prefer. ELECTRONIC METHOD By far, the easiest and fastest method to determine the frequency of the notes on the piano is by using an electron- ic device. I occasionally use the "SIGHT O TUNER" which can be purchased directly from the inventor, or from at least one supply house. Many other brands are available, so if you are interested in this method, you will have a decision to make. I must emphasize that you should NOT purchase an elec- tronic tuner until you are capable of tuning a piano with just a tuning fork, mutes and your ear. A discussion on electronic tuning and why I SOMETIMES rely on this method is provided to enrolled students on the audio tapes. Three reasons for learning the correct way of tuning: 1. What happens when your electronic device fails? Do you turn to the customer and say "I'm sorry, but my tuner is not working"? YOU are supposed to be the tuner. 2. A tuning fork is provided with the basic tuning kit - The best electronic tuner costs at least $1000. The best tuning device avail- able is YOUR EAR, which I believe was provid- ed at no cost. 3. Complete satisfaction and confidence in your abilities. You are in charge - you can handle any situation without an electronic aid. AURAL METHOD If you do not have access to an electronic tuning device, you will be able to determine the pitch of the piano by simply using your ear and applying the expertise you learned earlier in this course. Chapter 5-6 Let's assume that you have only a "C" tuning fork which sounds at 523.251 C.P.S. When you sound this fork and then sound C-52 on the piano, you will obviously hear something other than a tuned unison. REMEMBER to mute off the outer strings of C-52. Let's further assume that when you sound the fork with the string that C-52 sounds "lower" than the fork, and you can hear beats. Recall from previous discussions you learned that there are 100 "cents" between each 1/2 step. This is true throughout the piano scale, but C.P.S. and CENTS do not coincide in the same way. For example, when you were practicing tuning unisons and then adjusting the left string to beat at 1,2,3,4, etc. C.P.S., each cycle per second equated to a specific number of CENTS. If the center string of A-49 is set at 440 C.P.S. and the left string is set at 438 C.P.S., you will hear two beats per second. This also is a distance of 7.88 CENTS. If you hear eight beats, the distance would be approximately 32 cents. For those of you who would like a formula to figure out this relationship between C.P.S. and CENTS here it is! On a Texas Instrument (TI-55): 440/438 = log/2 log x 1200 = 7.887 For a more complete illustration, lets assume that you sound A-49 on the piano with an A-440 tuning fork and find that the piano is beating 6 C.P.S. flat. 1. enter 440 in the calculator and divide by 434 2. press the = sign 3. press the log button 4. divide this result by 2 5. press the log button (do not press = first) 6. multiply by 1200 and you should get 23.77 This tells you the piano is approximately 24 cents flat. Believe me, you DO NOT have to know the above procedure to determine the approximate pitch of the piano, but there are some people who like to know exactly how these pitches are calculated. More power to them - I didn't learn this proce- dure until I had been tuning over 10 years. NOW, for the procedure I have always used. Let's say that you know the piano is pretty far flat, but the beats are so fast in the C-52 region that you cannot count them. Sound C#-53 and the C-52 fork together. If the C# is close to the pitch of the fork, the piano would have to be Chapter 5-7 close 1/2 step or 100 CENTS flat. If the C# is lower than the fork, the piano would be over 1/2 step and if the C3 is higher than the fork, the piano is less than 1/2 step flat. The point is, you must determine APPROXIMATELY how far flat the piano is so the proper pitch raising procedure can be applied. If your tests show that the piano is very close to the standard pitch, you will merely set a temperament and tune it the normal way. However, if the piano is close to a quarter step flat, you must first bring it up to slightly over standard pitch and THEN set a temperament and tune. 1/4 STEP (50 cents) FLAT It has been my experience that a piano will fall about 25% of the distance it is raised in one tuning rather quick- ly. Since we are attempting to raise the pitch 50 cents, we will raise it over pitch approximately 12 cents (50/4). To do this, mute off the two outer strings of C-52 and tune the center string to the fork so you hear NO beats. Now pull out the right mute and raise the right string OVER the middle string until you hear 4 C.P.S. In this area of the piano, 4 C.P.S. = approximately 12 cents. Then tune the middle and left strings to the right one. You now have C-52 tuned about 12 cents sharp. If the piano is less than 1/4 step flat, just decrease the distance you pull the string over pitch. Now, mute the entire piano - set a temperament and quickly pull the strings close to pitch. At this point you are not "fine tuning". You just want to stretch the strings, so don't worry if your temperament or octaves are not perfect. After you finish this very "rough" tuning, check C-52 against the fork and see how far down the piano has fallen. You may have to repeat this procedure more than once before the final tuning. A WORD OF CAUTION: If there is rust on the strings, always turn the pin DOWN first before raising it up to or over pitch. This will tend to break loose the rust bond and string breakage is less likely. If the strings are extremely rusty, you may be better off telling the customer that the piano should be tuned at a lower pitch due to the high probability of string breakage. Chapter 5-8 OVER 1/4 STEP FLAT If the piano is between 1/4 and 1/2 step flat, the above procedure will work on some pianos and not on others. The condition of the pin block, strings and so forth will determine this. An extra "rough" tuning may be necessary, but essentially you follow the same procedure. If the piano is over 1/2 step flat, I recommend you give it a minimum of two rough tunings and return in a few days for one more rough tuning followed by the final "fine" tuning. The space of a few days is usually necessary to let the piano "settle". When you return you will have a pretty good idea of how well the piano will hold its pitch. Your first rough tuning on a piano that is 1/2 step flat can be easily accomplished by simply starting at the bottom of the piano on A-1 and tuning it to A#-2, then tune A#-2 to B-3, and so on all the way up to C-88. Just one string per unison first and then pull up the others. Your second rough tuning will include setting a temperament. Pianos that are a full step or more flat will require the above procedure and a return visit one, three and six months later before you can be reasonably sure that the pitch is stabilized. When a piano is over a full step down, care must be takes so the tension is applied evenly throughout the piano. If the piano is old and in generally poor shape, it is a good idea to bring it up 1/4 step or so at a time. It is rare that a plate will crack, but why take chances? I know I have said this a few times before, but it is worth repeating - Mute the entire piano and apply tension to one string per unison throughout the scale.j This method will stabilize the pitch in a shorter time and the possibil- ity of damage to the instrument is much less. Please understand that the above procedures are based on my experiences over the years. I have discussed this subject with many technicians and found that many of them will pull up the pitch of a piano (regardless of how far down it is) and immediately set a temperament and fine tune it. I have done this many times in the past, and am con- vinced that the procedures I outlined above work best for ME. After you have tuned for a while, you will decide what works best for YOU. Chapter 5-9 PITCH LOWERING To lower the pitch, simply reverse the procedure you use in raising the pitch. You will go below the standard pitch by 25% of the distance the piano is sharp. Depending on how far sharp the piano is, you will rough tune until it begins to hold and then fine tune. It is rare that a piano will go as far over pitch as it will go under. Only in climates with consistently high humidity would you find this situation. We are so used to tuning flat pianos that it feels awkward to tune one that is sharp. Once you get used to "setting the pin" in reverse, you will have no problem. In this chapter, you learned: 1. Precautions to take when raising the pitch of a piano 2. Why pianos go out of tune 3. Importance of humidity control 4. Brief explanation of electronic tuning (more on tapes) 5. How to determine the pitch of the piano your are going to tune eith just your ear and a tuning fork 6. "technical" info on how to find pitches without using the charts 7. Raising the pitch less than 1/4 step 8. Raising the pitch more than 1/4 step 9. Pitch lowering Press P to print out this chapter, or ESC for the menu.