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Hello, would you obtain more firmness in the pins, your piano would have more tone (any piano does that)

you mostly need to manipulate the lever sooner than you do.

Listening through the playing hand is the best shortcut for that.
(the playing finger say to the ear to listen, way more quietly than if you just try to "catch the tone" with your ears.

....

Then you discover you can, and you wish, to play the notes more often,and eventually quietly.

And you can begin to appreciate the way the tone is escaping from the attack, which is the important part of the tone for the pianist.

Isaac, If I am understanding you correctly, you are telling me to listen and judge the sound of the note from the attack at normal playing volume--AND--that I need to develop the ear-hand coordination to find that place of judgement more quickly as my hand moves the hammer to bring the note into "tune." Yes?

Yes, the tone is tuned since the attack, since the moment the finger bottoms.

From there it is more or less "opened" unison wise, the attack sound reinforced while the partials are well flowing together.

You need to press the lever very slowly to be able to put the tone where you want.

The bumping, or tapping method counts on the natural physical coupling process ( a strong process) which occur when 2 strings are near enough, and a somehow strong blow is given, they do then the last "tuning" by themselves, but the result can be a little uncontrolled, at best, and with hammer mating or termination problems the coupling can turn to parasitic noise.

So better control also that part of the process and for that a very precise management of the tuning pin is necessary. You need to keep the contact at all times with the torqued pin so to really know what is happening.

Then you really have your hands and full body "in" the tone.

Isaac, you are aware that your way is not the only way, right?

Not really , Loren, it is not "my" way, it is the way pianos are tuned.

The very exact thing that said Rxd is that at some point anyone tend to the same techniques and result, as the necessities are the same for all pianos.
Even unison wise, I sometime try to look smart by talking of different shapes, that are constructed more or less conscientiously by tuners, but the differences are really not that large and is about the amount of "opening" of the tone.
The basic structure and envelope is exactly similar for all tuners, if not the piano cannot be expressive.

The evident symptom is an abuse of the sustain pedal so to have a more colored and longer tone.

It comes to the point that rare are the professionals who are willing to understand the validity of what is said, while in the meantime it is of a huge profit to involved amateurs , and some of them are today obtaining the best of their own piano without your help.

I totally agree with rxd who state that we have not to decide how the piano is supposed to sound, not by tuning anyway.

We can detect some things that musicians are not always used to, but there is more similitude than difference in the job done by top professionals.

And I am not at all talking justness, UT or ET , whatever, just how to handle the lever, tuning pin and string and work at professional level.

Being self taught is a source of pride, I understand that, (and we are all by certain aspects) but it gives a lot of defects, some of them are really nasty habits that are not always easy to get rid of.

at "concert level" It took me probably years to learn things of the same importance I learned in a few hours of exchanges with my masters. So I try now to give back a little.

Due to the lack of industry, learning tuning can be difficult, but what I see is that an important point in tone quality is not really explained, or addressed, I never seen it written on PTG guides for instance, nor books on tuning .

When I come to tune a piano, I immediately know if the precedent tuner knows his job or no. (will it be easy or no ?) Some have tuned all their life without the wanted control, and earned a leaving that way, fine for me, but when information is offered, the minimum is to try to understand it and many does not seem to want.

Let it be...

I was right. You are not aware that your way is not the only way.

Yes I am, hence my efforts toward the ones who listen.

It is useless to have ears (or the top notch ETD !) if you only can obtain a dull and non firm tone. Waste of time, waste of energy, frustration for the pianist.

I don't expect any tuner to be able to provide concert work, but at last a professional may know how to install a firm and stable tuning. Aint the case

I have enough other things to learn by now to take me occupied hopefully.

Plus I can dance ! can you ?

(sorry we said "no attacks on physical aspects" !!)

Well... It has been a while!

Here is EBVT III on a freshly tuned 5' 7" Steinway L, the property of one of the residents at an assisted living center where I play regularly. The piano is located in the dining hall. I've been privileged to practice tuning and practice playing on this piano for almost a year, now. What a joy! Bill did a day's regulation and hammer shaping in May (I related that story in this thread. )

So today, I used the SAT, and payed attention to all the stuff about hammer manipulation and moving the pin foot or not and watching the coils and setting the pin from above or below pitch and whether or not to flag pole and using an impact tap or two or three to scootch the whole string, and listening, not just watching, and checking double octaves and octave thirds and octave fifths, and all the other stuff that I've been reading about in this forum recently. I hope it shows.

As far as the "performance" goes, I know I could have stretched the tempo a bit, especially at the beginning, but I pulled this out of my satchel to play on a whim... It's been awhile since I've practiced it, and it shows.

Anyway, I hope you like it!

"In A Sentimental Mood," Duke Ellington, arr. by Bill Boyd (Jazz Favorites, (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard), 1994).

--Andy

A Steinway L is 5' 10-1/2", not 5' 7", which would be an M.

It sounds fine to me.

LOL, BDB! I must'a mis-measured. I went from the tail to the keyslip. Parallax do you suppose? Should I have measured with the lid down? That would have added an inch or so... I know it's an "L," in any case!

Chris, Thanks for listening!

Sounds great Andy!

How nice it would be to push a button on the piano, and change to all these wonderful temperaments...it's just too much gol-darn work to do it by hand!!!!

It's fun to look back through this thread....Bill, that was my tuning on the M&H RBB, using your figures for EBVT III from your 2nd visit in July, 2010, with the Ipad Verituner.



Bill Bremmer wrote on 2/28/13:

I don't know who tuned this piano but I lifted it from the "Best UT for Jazz" thread. There were some very strong suggestions that only ET would be appropriate for Jazz.

Well, here you go, some Jazz in the EBVT III:

https://www.box.com/s/af88f16f9cea23c42e9c

No doubt, GP! I'm still trying to screw up my courage to do the ET via Marpurg like woodog did! Someday...

Good unisons to me, even open tone, a little floating but nice . Sound ok, apart the EBVT I do not appreciate that much.
Even the pins seem to be firm/tight, seem to me on my cell phone (not with headphones, but it may be due to the voicing ).

nice treble, it is difficult for an amateur to tune well those treble notes

Thanks for listening and commenting, Isaac! I hope to be a professional some day. As in--

http://youtu.be/QjW-ajAUFpw

http://youtu.be/CuX_tfB_NxM

One more...

It's not perfectly played by any means, but here is that gorgeous Steinway L at the assisted living center, again, tuned yesterday, and recorded this morning before "playing" over Sunday dinner ("Wow! Carrot cake for dessert!"). I did it pretty much urtext the first time around, then judiciously arpeggiated and asynchronized the second time around.

Jack Lawrence/Walter Gross, "Tenderly" from the 1946/47 sheet.

--Andy

Nicely done Andy, tuning and playing~!

Yeah, pretty good for a dentist wannabe. :-)

Forrest

The piano definitively sings better than the dentist wanabee !

Have moved yet ? I would try to listen to the 5th and 6 th octave, see how the tone behaves, and try to do the same in the mediums, to lower that floating impression that tend to make the piano nasal sounding.

BUt here clearly some firmness at the pin and upper segment level seem to miss. so the tone is too wild, waving a little.

that Eb4 and Bb for instance. Try to have some concentrated attack (as it is in the treble) and clean the rest as much as you can. Hear as the treble flows out correctly since the start, it is possible to do the same in mediums.

Best regards

PS You probably need to play stronger and more often than you allowed yourself to do (due to the place ?) so the pins are more tight and as stressed as the wire (75 Kg, is not nothing, you need to experience that stress within the pin and the pinblock, via the lever)