Rogue Scholar (or anyone who might know something about pianos)

Willie Bee · 06-22-09, 02:55 PM

Are you sure it's the piano?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Mudcat · 06-22-09, 03:03 PM

RogueScholar · 06-22-09, 03:04 PM

The only thing that comes to mind Muddy is have you changed piano tuners recently? Generally if your piano is going out of tune that quickly without a change in conditions it means the tuner is doing a lazy job. The piano could need a pitch raise or two before a fine tuning can really settle in and last a decent amount of time. Do you know when your last pitch raise was done on it?

Mudcat · 06-22-09, 03:12 PM

I did change tuners. The old guy stopped doing it a year ago. That's when the change in tuning consistency happened.

Basically you said what I was wondering: if all tunings are created equal or there is some kind of half-assed tune that they might do.

I don't know when the last pitch raise was.

The new guy seems like a good guy - and he plays a mean Scott Joplin - but I guess I should try someone different this time and bring up this question of pitch raise.

englishmike · 06-22-09, 03:25 PM

100 years old? That's your problem, too old. Get a new one.

Mudcat · 06-22-09, 03:38 PM

You're probably right. Maybe it's just going bad like an over-ripe banana.

englishmike · 06-22-09, 04:00 PM

I was joking and so were you I hope.

RogueScholar · 06-22-09, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by Mudcat

I did change tuners. The old guy stopped doing it a year ago. That's when the change in tuning consistency happened.

Basically you said what I was wondering: if all tunings are created equal or there is some kind of half-assed tune that they might do.

I don't know when the last pitch raise was.

The new guy seems like a good guy - and he plays a mean Scott Joplin - but I guess I should try someone different this time and bring up this question of pitch raise.

Yeah Mudcat, you have your answer. If the variable in the equation is a new tuner, then he's probably just getting his feet wet in the industry. I've fallen victim to this scenario myself, a gifted musician decides to make some coin by tuning, but hasn't spent the years apprenticing necessary to understand all of the nuances.

Obviously there are tens of tons of stress being harnassed inside your piano, stress that is distributed unevenly. Since you used to only tune the piano every couple of years, the keys that saw the most action would lose the most tension, further imbalancing the stress. What a pitch raise does is bring all the truly flat notes back into relative scale with the rest of the piano without caring so much about actual frequency, evening the stress and allowing the actual fine tuning of each note to be done independant of the notes next to it. Otherwise the weakness of some of the strings (the "popular" ones) is going to cause the notes next to them to fall almost instantly back out of tune right after he does his job.

Hopefully this is of some use to you. I hate to counsel you to find a more experienced tuner, but I myself always find the oldest one in town and treat him like a king while he's here. Living a stone's throw from the ocean, it's the only way I can get a tuning to last six months.

flyingillini · 06-22-09, 04:59 PM

I used to take Piano lessons when I was 5 years old. God Bless

Mudcat · 06-22-09, 05:29 PM

Originally posted by englishmike

I was joking and so were you I hope.

Yes totally. I really do end up in this position too often where people can't tell if I'm joking. Clearly I need to work on my delivery.

Thanks RS. I want my rickety old tuner guy back. Nice old guy who would play these fascinating, haunting, I-don't-know-what-they-are progressions when he was testing things out. But something happened to his knees that made him stop tuning pianos.

Who knew knees were so important to piano tuning?

Anyway, I'll go forward with it one way or other. It is bloody painful to listen to right now.

pavyracer · 06-22-09, 05:49 PM

Quit having sex on the piano. That will fix the problem.