Posted on 09/23/2024 8:41:03 AM PDT by CharlesOConnell
The worst problem, which prevents a piano from being put perfectly in tune across all "notes", is, for explanation purposes, "growling", lack of each string evoking uniform, neutral harmonics, lack of each string being supported by a bridge which is tangential, 90 degrees, able to be repaired by filing the bridge square when restringing. A tuner can only tune each "note" to a certain level of in-tune-ness, but if this "growling" is afflicting a string, it will never sound perfectly in tune, there will always be a vaguely "out-of-tune" tone. You can listen to various classical performances, to hear which pianos are in proper shape; it's a tragedy when a beautiful performance is marred by a less than perfect instrument
Pianists face challenges getting the sound they want from their instrument. They probably don't understand the technical flaws in their piano. Just knowing the foundations of good piano sound can help them in their playing.
There's a breach between the piano builder and the pianist—if the builder hasn't had sufficient musical education, he will be limited in understanding the musical requirements of the pianist; if the pianist doesn't understand the extensive, but limited technical foundation of the piano as an instrument, their playing will suffer.
A great builder starts by becoming a competent player on an instrument—my master, with whom I had a failed apprenticeship because I didn't have sufficient shop background in school—but he still fully explained the technical part, even if I couldn't master all the crafts—had a BA from a college in a wind instrument, and he has a sideline in acquiring, repairing and maintaining, and recording that instrument.
My master grew up on a real farm, the kind of family farm displaced today by giant ag-businesses. During harvest, if a part on a harvester failed, they couldn't take time to drive 600 miles for a replacement part, they had to have very strong shop skills, to re-manufacture the part. This was the background my master started with.
(This was where I failed—I didn't even take shop in school. An operating engineer had to teach me, "to avoid cross-threading a screw, you turn it backwards until it clicks, then you are at the correct insertion rotation point". I never knew such a thing.)
The environment into which my master entered when starting to independently enter the piano manufacture field, was as follows: when the U.S. entered World War I, there were 300 piano brands in the U.S. alone. This was before radio and sound cinema. Nearly all middle-class homes had a piano of some kind. (Everyone who wasn't deaf or tone-deaf, could "sing" the lyrics to 200 songs, even with a poor voice; there were 10 one-million sellers of sheet music.)
Each of the piano manufacturers had to encompass 11 different secret piano crafts; there are dozens of books which claim to convey these secrets, but they are highly proprietary, and must be independently researched and discovered as traditional crafts. (I mastered piano finishes, because my master had researched and discovered the fundamentals).
After stopping the "growling", (heterodyning, which the Indian instrument Tambura deliberately provokes to cause harmonics to slowly evoke upon which vocalists repose their execution of microtones), the highest piano craft is hammer regulation: making the hammers give out a range of tone from bright to luxuriant. Hammers are shaped with a Dremel tool (I mastered it), sprayed with a thin layer of lacquer, then the master takes a tiny tool with an awl handle, with a business end of a little metal block about 12 mm wide, in which 4 tiny needles are fixed with screws. The master makes the hammer's tone luxuriant or "full bosomed" by softening the hammer, deeply gouging and needling the hammer, which releases some of the tension with which the compressed felt adheres to the wood core. Or, if the tone is to be bright, the master makes the hammer stiffer, by applying any additional, needed lacquer. Mastery of this one of the piano crafts, consists in achieving the required tone across all 88 keys.
The second craft, which my master explained ONCE to me, but I promptly forgot the details, because of my educational insufficiency, is matching the mechanical clockwork "escapement" (like a tiny rachet the lifts off the teeth in a rotating gear once per second). Each key has a complicated array of wooden levers supported by a thick brass button, interposed by tiny felts—properly gluing felts is a whole craft in itself. The goal is for there to be a number of variations in intensity of striking response.
A top model concert grand which sells for $250,000, requires the same amount of technician time to put it in concert shape. Only the instruments which a manufacturer produces on a custom basis, come out of the show room in this condition. If you try to buy a concert instrument, it will have some of the defects described above.
To err sounds human.
I used to work the houses on the beach and always wondered about the piano on “Two and a Half Men” my customers said the salt water messed with their pianos.
An operating engineer had to teach me, “to avoid cross-threading a screw, you turn it backwards until it clicks, then you are at the correct insertion rotation point”. I never knew such a thing.
= == =
This is really, really important. Especially in replacing sheet metal screws.
A little harder to perform on the new cars, with plastic fittings and maybe previous cross threading by the dealer’s ‘technicians’.
Although on a much smaller scale, similar problems with guitars and fish.
I tune the B string on my guitar a few cents down for that bluesy-type note that's almost "there" but not quite.
I don't even want to think about tuning a piano. Three strings per key? Nuts!
They are all keyed up.
In my high school there was a piano tuner who came through once a year, or as needed.
He was an elderly man who needed to be escorted from one piano to the next because he was totally blind.
He did good work.
Fascinating info, Charles. Thanks for writing that up. Like any great craft, so much of the art is hidden away, taken for granted, and never appreciated. It’s amazing what goes into making a great piano.
I grew up with a Baldwin upright in our house. Mom was a good pianist and church choir singer. She tried very hard to instill that in me and my two sisters, but it didn’t stick. I remember well the long hours of drudgery trying to learn to play the piano competently. I could barely progress beyond “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” I kept asking to end my lessons but mom kept me going for a few years and finally relented and let me quit. Of course, that’s one of the regrets of my life.
Tomorrow my wife and I will make tuna jelly. It’s an Arizona thing.
If you hire Mr. Opporknockity to tune your piano, make sure he gets it right the first time.
Because Opporknockity only tunes once.
You can tuna fish but you can’t tune a piano?............
Since when do TVwriters care about accuracy?
Precisely
Since I also lived on the water and knew what it did to brass and everything else, like those patio doors and door knobs and lamps etc. I would speculate what it would cost to keep everything in his house so shiny and the doors sliding open so easily and the windows not showing the ocean spray mess which covers everything.
I’m fortunate that my little brother is a graduate of North Bennet Street School Boston, in Piano Technology. Then trained at Steinway in NY. (He was there on 9/11.) He restored a Steinway for me a couple years ago.
Even though we don’t live close to each other, he knows how to identify the best techs in our area.
Humidity is the killer. As it swells the wood, the strings tighten and go sharp, as it dries, they loosen and go flat. Keep the instrument in a climate controlled room with a constant level of humidity.
The newer electronic pianos are offering interesting sounds, with weighted keys at a lower cost. Only getting better for newcomers who can eventually graduate to an acoustic grand if their talent warrants it.
Read later.
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