Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Tried Bill Bremmer's hammer technique today

OOOPS - spoke too soon -
there is indeed a link to the "4 techs" video but it's a dead link.

I will let the PTG know...

LOL

This was your early response to this topic:



I still stick with my advice on how to do all of the above that you mentioned. You are welcome to post your own alternatives to each.

with comments like yours makes me wonder what you have contribute to the industry. I and many other tuners respect what Bill has done over the years, I guess you don't

He does tend to follow Bill around here, it seems. Like you, Wayne, I respect and appreciate Bill's decades of contribution to the trade. I don't agree with everything he says, but the good part is, I don't have to! I can still recognize the value of what he does and contributes.

Loren, the problem is not the content of what is posted but how the prose is structured; always tearing down another to build oneself up is the classic straw man argument. The trouble begins when one denigrates another’s way of working or thinking. This is the main complaint regarding this member’s postings and is the part that offends some of the other members here.

Doesn’t make much difference to me any longer because I am not around here much; the technical aspect of this forum has really fallen away in the past couple of years. There are no longer many threads of any technical importance.

I agree with some of what you have said Bill but not all. I myself have tried out the CM3 method of setting the temperament and do use it with success. However, I do like and use the 4ths and 5ths method and with success too.

I hear and agree with the impact style of tuning and do imploy it on some pianos and it can help with speed but then again I might tune just as fast using the slow pull method too.

With regard to your following statement, "What I do know is that raising the pitch of a string with a slow pull will naturally put more tension between the pin and the termination point. That is what often causes a string to break.".

I understand what you are saying Bill but I do not see or experience what you are saying here. I do not agree that the slow pull method causes string breakage.

I have pitch raised and tuned many pianos with the slow pull method and in all the pianos that I have pitch adjusted and tuned in the last 6 years of my tuning career, apart from 3 years of chipping and pitch raising pianos in a workshop enviroment, I have maybe had 1-2% of the strings snap and even then that maybe due to certain other reasons, not the slow pull method.

I also think that speed and relaxation in tuning come in general from understanding what you are doing and from many years of tuning experience. It is not something one should be boasting about.

The impact style of tuning must be seen as one of the tools in our bag of tools and not the only tool to use in tuning pianos.

Regards,

Jeff,

I see no intended offense in Bill's writing. Maybe I'm still in the other side of a cultural barrier, but still - Bill advocates what he does, and leaves the door open. Why would that be wrong, in any way?

I certainly have left open the door because I do know that people can and do use a classic 4ths & 5ths temperament sequence along with a slow pull method successfully. All I am saying is that if those techniques have not worked for you, there are others which far more technicians have found to be successful.

I reiterate: What I learned in 1979 to be the "most mechanically correct" method proved to be true for me. Anyone is invited to demonstrate and/or prove that any other methods are superior.

I don't think the point should be to prove one method over the other. I do think though that presenting what works for you can help people to learn what works for them. I can't imagine using a smooth pull method for myself. Plus it somewhat blows my mind how many people use it and as far as I can tell with great success. But I can not say what method works the best because it would seem both work. I could say to someone here, take this bolt off, use this wrench. then I could take out a similar bolt with a ratchet. I may be faster but did the wrench not get the job done? Of course the wrench did fine and if it was used by someone who only uses wrenches his time might have not been bad! My point is I have been very frustrated many times when perfectly good threads get mussed up from all this back and forth. 'My methods better than your's' sometimes is whats going on and it reminds me of a saying that is only slightly different. It becomes very tiresome for people on the outset. I don't have any beef with anybody...can't we all just get along? buhuh buhuh buhuh :-)

I believe the reality is that different pianos require different techniques. On some pianos the "slow pull" is more effective and on others the jerk method is better. Some pianos I tune at 1 'O clock, and others at 3.

What helps is to have an arsenal of techniques that will help you deal with the eccentricities of the piano at hand.

Clearly, I agree with this. I could see that one of the people I had helped, struggling for over an hour just to set a temperament and failing badly, did not know how to manage a new piano with squeaky, tight and jumpy pins as I saw him attempt the slow pull method and heard the tuning pin lurch back and forth numerous times.

He told me that he had never tuned new pianos, only old ones that were usually not in very good condition. He came to the convention to learn and to take the tuning exam because he believes that becoming an RPT is the best thing he could do for himself. He already went to the school, has the certificate, learned the slow pull method on the old pianos at the school and also learned to tune a temperament sequence using 4ths & 5ths.

Six years ago, he had come to me to ask my advice. He demonstrated what he could do. Although he could tune excellent unisons, his temperament was, yes, sorry to say but in fact, true, reverse well and would not have passed the exam. He also had a rather poor concept of octaves.

From what I saw at the time, an attempt to pass the tuning exam would have been what is often seen with first time attempts, some good scores but others falling far short of passing. He also went to a local dealer who is an RPT and was told fairly bluntly that he would have to learn everything all over.

Naturally, he found both of our comments to be discouraging. He had the diploma! He trusted in what he had been taught. For the next few years, each time he asked me to listen to his temperament, it was always reverse well. As many have said, he had never heard of that, so he didn't know what I was talking about. I said that he would have to know what well temperament sounds like to understand. "We were not taught well temperament", he replied "Only equal temperament." "But your temperament is not equal", I countered. "The way I did it is the only way I know how. What am I doing wrong?", he asked.

It was not that he didn't know some checks, he did but his perception of them had not developed sufficiently enough to discern the errors he accepted as correct. "You have to try a different strategy", I said. "Like what?", he asked. "The contiguous thirds", I replied.

"Oh yeah, we learned something about those but I can't get them. I can't just pull beats out of thin air. I am better at 4ths and 5ths", he claimed. "Well, you are clearly not better at 4ths & 5ths since the result of tuning them is an unequal, not equal temperament", I said. "You must learn to do both", I insisted. "I can teach you what to do but you must be willing to learn something new or you will never progress beyond the point where you are now. It is not that what you were taught was wrong, you just have an incomplete understanding of it. In order for you to improve, you have to learn some new techniques", I told him.

It took a long time but slowly, he did improve. Still, while at the convention and wanting to practice, he could only find brand new squeaky tight-pinned Asian pianos to practice on. He had reverted to his slow pull method and that was what was causing him problems. He had always had a habit of blaming the piano for his inability to tune it. I told him that he had come to the end of the line for that.

"You must be able to adapt your technique to whatever resistance the piano has to offer. Any piano used for a tuning exam at the convention will likely be a new one with very tight tuning pins. That is not going to change. You have to change or you will fail but watch all the others who passed get their reward for it. They can do it, the examiners who did the master tuning had no problem with it, so either you find a way to do it that works or you never will.", I told him calmly but firmly.

He did have some impact skills within his range of technique and instantly found upon trying them that they indeed worked. He went on to take and pass the tuning exam the next day with some very impressive scores, three of them 100's in fact, one 88 which is still quite good but all the rest mid to high 90's. Not bad at all, above average and certainly above average for a first attempt.

Learning skills other than those which were traditionally taught was what it took for him to succeed. It is not about "my way" being the only way. I learned "my way" from other technicians in PTG. It is their way too. To suggest that I should not have shown that man what to do that would probably work for him because it "offends" some people in this forum is absurd.

I should not actually write the details and specifics of what to do that may work for some people when other methods have not because that is not "technical information", it is boasting and bragging. It is putting other people down so as to make myself look better. If that is what you, as an individual believe, you are entitled to your opinion. You have the right to express it and you also have the right to describe in your own words which techniques work the best for you, just as I do.

Some 30 years ago, I noticed that for every strongly held opinion or belief, there would eventually arise an opinion or belief contrary to it. I soon realized that this did not mean that one person was right and the other wrong. They were both right depending on certain factors, conditions and circumstances. It would be far more useful to try to understand where each is coming from than to take a polarized position.

I have learned to tune ET aurally by reading Bill Bremmer's posts and articles in his site and here in PW.

Before that, I tuned visually, with an ETD.

All Bill teaches about tuning is clear and straight to the point. One has no problems to follow his instructions. All he says is factible, opposed to what is adviced by UnrightTooner , who never has a clear answer to specific questions (i.e. how to temper a fifth in ET = describe what an apple tastes like) but always finds a way to missinterpret, missquote, question and bash what Bill says.

I have learned not a single thing from what you have posted here Tooner, how dare you criticize the most prolific and successfull piano-tuning teacher of PW? You don't have sufficient moral and intellectual authority to criticize him.

Jeff, don't you see that the balance goes against you?

Apart from Doel Kees and several amateurs and neophytes you have no followers here and Bill Bremmer has tons of them.

Please stop your bashing! Your defamatory remarks and unfounded assertions are not welcome here!

When, if ever, you have something constructive to say then your posts will be appreciated.

Me tooBefore that I tuned baroque well tempered, aurally.

My take is that if you're a beginning tuner you'd do well and even pass the RPT exam following Bill and not think much about it.

Jeff is more interested in going beyond that and coming up with a coherent practice and theory to tune even very poorly scaled pianos. His ideas on this I find very useful.
More generally I enjoy reading Jeff's critiques of Bill's posts, as he generally brings up valid critiques. The personal bashings from both sides we just have to ignore; this is just part of being passionate about the issue from both sides.

I wish the two people I appreciate most on this forum could get along, but it is possible to get things done without getting along!

Kees

Here is an example: I ate corn flakes for breakfast. Mechanical pencils are far superior to wooden ones. The air conditioning in the car felt great. Those that do not use mechanical pencils are behind the times. I did not have to dodge any deer on the way to work. Using wooden pencils is a waste of resources.

I think some people take offense or read something into what I write when no criticism or offense was implied or intended. Yes, I have said that the Braide-White and other books written a hundred years ago are obsolete. So are any number of other books on other subjects. New information does come to light. Nearly anyone who does use those classic temperament sequences has to supplement what is written there with information gleaned from elsewhere.

A slow pull hammer technique likewise, is one way of manipulating a tuning hammer. It is what one might do naturally. If one ever tuned a guitar, one turned the pegs. If one ever tuned a harpsichord or forte piano, one had a key and turned the pins. One hundred years ago, pianos had pinblocks made of a few laminates of hard rock maple. Only large pianos were made then which had predictable scales.

Perhaps technicians back then would often take two hours to tune a piano and consider that to be the amount of time it should take. I can't imagine tuning a square grand in less time or ever getting one of those in tune to anywhere near the standards that are expected today. If one saw some of the pianos in the PTG museum, one would wonder how anyone ever coped with those. I doubt that any of them ever sounded as in tune as we can do with the knowledge and tools we have today.

Now we have pianos made with modern pinblocks which have a dozen or more laminates. When they are new, these pianos are very challenging to tune. It only makes sense to use a different technique on them.

Both Jack Stebbins and I have shown how the use of contiguous thirds serve to divide an octave into three equal parts regardless of irregular scaling and regardless of the placement of wound strings. Jim Coleman, Sr. also shows how to cope with these scale changes in his lectures and when he tutors. I have worked directly with and under him and shown many students what to do and how to do it. The results are always predictable and correct.

None of that was or ever is meant as a criticism of anyone who chooses to use other methods. It is a suggested strategy for those who have tried those methods and failed repeatedly. "If that method does not work for you, then try this and determine for yourself if it works better for you". There is no put down or offense implied to anyone with such suggestions. Anyone who wants to also has the right to find fault or criticism with impact hammer techniques or the use of contiguous thirds.

And Jerry never misses an oppurtunity to bash Jeff when he bashes Bill for bashing 4ths and 5ths.....

Put a lid on it Jeff. Stop looking for and creating trouble. Go into your own thread instead of highjacking this one.

LOL!!!!
I love it when the grown-ups fight.

Jeff, you just prove what I was thinking, you are an