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Post by mobeach on Jan 22, 2016 20:23:48 GMT -6
A friend of mine got a free used Upright Piano that could use a tuning, is it a schooled skill to be able to get it perfect? There's two strings per key on the low keys and three per key on the mid to high keys. I would think as long as you know the fundamentals of how to tune it, it would just take quite a bit of time. Another question is do any of you tune in Thirds and Fifths of just Octaves?
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Post by saxmonster on Jan 22, 2016 22:19:47 GMT -6
Always wondered too, but from what I have learned from playing it over the years and watching others tune is that you can't bring it up all at once to be in tune. So say if it is a half step flat you may have to bring it up a quarter of a step at a time so your don't break the strings.
Also it is called the well tempered clavier and I don't know which notes are actually intune and you match the others like you said with P4 p5 or octaves. Would love to learn this though. Is there a good course out there?
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jan 22, 2016 22:45:14 GMT -6
M57 does his own. ...sorry I keep tagging you brother. Haha.
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Post by iamasound on Jan 23, 2016 0:40:45 GMT -6
It is kind of a chore retuning my piano every time I want to change keys in different songs that I pen, it takes so bloody long, so I have been just leaving it tuned to Fmaj and transposing it up or down in the box with Melodyn.
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Post by M57 on Jan 23, 2016 5:24:50 GMT -6
The 'fundamentals' of how to tune a piano are not that easy. You will not be able to do it well "unassisted." For starters, any good piano tuner is going to 'stretch' the temperament as they go to the outside octaves. The good news is that technology is excellent at doing this. This software has changed my life.. www.tunelab-world.comThe apple store site blurb declares, "Do not buy this app unless you are a professional piano technician." ..which I am not. Yes it's expensive, but short story, disregard the warning - get a good quality tuning hammer and some wedges and buy the app. It's amazing. If you want the long story, read on.. Back five or ten years ago (I lost track), I was calling my piano tuner friend so often that he suggested I try and save money (and my sanity) and tune my own unisons and the occasional rogue note. In order to put off calls to the guy, I did my best to keep the octave below middle C happy - as it had a penchant to go wacky first. Finally, I broke down and got the free windows version of tune-lab (which shuts down every 13 notes for a minute or two.) I ended up using that for a year or so before buying it for my iPad (There's no free version for iPad). Here's how it works. It starts you off with a procedure where it analyzes string 'inharmonicity' over the range of the instrument. This enables it to learn the difference between the theoretical and actual harmonics/overtones of your strings. Once, it has your instrument in its memory, you then select a preset tuning curve, or design your own. You can even load historical tunings, etc. When I first got it, I started making some minor tweaks to the standard tuning - stretching it a little more than the standard to bring things just a little more to life. I don't pretend to understand the psycho-acoustics of it, but perfect tuning across octaves sound dull. I like my piano about 10 cents sharp at the top and 10 cents flat at the bottom. Suffice it to say, I doubt you could do this yourself unless you're an experienced pro. Yeah - $300 is a lot of money.. But ask yourself how often you call a tuner, and then calculate how long it would take for it to pay for itself. My piano holds tune pretty well, but this app has made me a total intonation snob. I'm always tweaking miscreant strings, and usually within a couple weeks (depending on the time of year), it creeps up or down a couple of cents - and in some registers a little more than others, etc, so I end up giving it a top to bottom tuning every 2-3 weeks, basically getting all the strings within 0.5 cents of perfect, and it is an incredible thing when it's dialed in. If you consider that theoretically, I've had a free piano tuner in my house every week, I've saved many thousands of dollars, and certainly have been a happier and more sane musician. An in-tune piano just makes you smile. |
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Jan 23, 2016 14:18:48 GMT -6
Beware that many old pianos can't be tuned which is why they are cheap or free.
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Post by mobeach on Jan 23, 2016 15:23:22 GMT -6
Beware that many old pianos can't be tuned which is why they are cheap or free. How can you tell? |
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Post by M57 on Jan 23, 2016 15:39:21 GMT -6
Beware that many old pianos can't be tuned which is why they are cheap or free. How can you tell? I'm gonna say the best method is to get a piano tech to look at it. Then I'll venture the second best method is to actually try to tune it - be sure to move every peg. But then, and especially if you're bringing the pitch up or down significantly, you're not going to know how well it holds until you tune it a couple times. No doubt, there are some that you would be able to tell instantly, and you'd definitely want to stay away from those. If you tune it, or even just tune unisons say at all the C's and F#s, come back the next day and if nothing has slipped more than a few cents, that's a good sign, right? |
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Post by mobeach on Jan 23, 2016 20:17:41 GMT -6
I'm gonna say the best method is to get a piano tech to look at it. Then I'll venture the second best method is to actually try to tune it - be sure to move every peg. But then, and especially if you're bringing the pitch up or down significantly, you're not going to know how well it holds until you tune it a couple times. No doubt, there are some that you would be able to tell instantly, and you'd definitely want to stay away from those. If you tune it, or even just tune unisons say at all the C's and F#s, come back the next day and if nothing has slipped more than a few cents, that's a good sign, right? It's not mine so there's no way I'll be putting serious time into it, I'll have her hire a pro to assess it. |
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