Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Biggest pitch raise I've ever done. What's yours?

I have restrung pianos, so they have gone from nothing to pitch.

I have been asked to tune birdcage pianos which are really, really flat. I get out of it by showing the owner how, if I turn the tuning pin and let go of my tuning hammer, the tuning hammer swings back. It is my favorite demonstration of an untunable piano.

You mean you actually make the trip to the owner's home to do the demo (and then presumably have to bill them for your time)?

I pre-screen those kind of pianos over the phone. There is no use in wasting my time and the client's money.

Just yesterday someone called me with one. It "came with the house". Increasingly, pianos are "coming with the house" when a house is sold. Sadly, the unsuspecting buyers have no idea they are buying a liability and the last owner didn't want to invest in piano removal.

I told the client what to look for on CG and to call me back when she found a piano for technical inspection.

It has only happened a couple of times. Once was when I was paid for an inspection, and the person who paid for it bought one of my pianos instead, something I did not bring up until I had shown the problem with the piano in question.

I will sometimes offer to stop in and look at a piano if I am in the neighborhood, but it has to work out at my convenience. The last time, the person left her work number, rather than a number where the piano was, and that does not work for me.

I used to charge for pitch raises, but decided on a more "community" approach. I raised my rate a bit and if a piano needs a pitch raise, or the lost motion adjusted, or a couple of ivories glued back on I don't charge extra. Yeah, some pianos don't need any extra work and the "time" goes into a community "bank" and gets used where it is needed more. But if a piano requires TWO pitch raises, then there is an extra charge.

Ok, but what % of your tuning jobs so far have been
within 10 cents? I haven't had any yet...

From zero tension.

A piano that has a dampchaser (that is working...) or one that is tuned regularly is usually within 10 cents. But I usually do not worry about a PR unless it is 20 cents or more. A little overshoot, or a blind PR in the treble, or floating the pitch (in some cases...) works fine without a full PR.

What exactly do you mean by "blind PR", or "floating the pitch"?

Sorry for the newbie questions....

Use the search feature, please. No time right now...

Blind pitch raise;

You attend an instrument that is low pitch; you make note of how far the tuning hammer moves to bring up one string in the center register. Then without touching the keyboard you pull each string up using the same amount of movement for each tuning pin. This is raising the pitch “blind” (without sound)

Floating pitches;

You attend an instrument in a church in late September and the center register is sharp and the ends slightly low. Leave the center sharp, set temperament there, and bring up the ends of the scale. Then during the winter months the scale will fall more evenly.

The tuning was not @ pitch but floated where it was found. To drop the center in September will cause a pendulum effect that you don’t want.

Unless of course the instrument is played in concert with other instruments and the requirement was for A440 scale. Then the pendulum effect is unavoidable.

Good explanation, Dan. Thanks!

I've had a fair amount of old pianos over the years which were 300-400 cents flat. Most of neglected ones are between 50-150 cents flat. For the big pitch raises on uprights I will do a sample pin in the mid base, midrange and mid treble to get an angle reading for each and do a blind pitch raise. I recheck downbearing if the structure is sketchy and then use the smart tune or pitch raise function of RCT to clean it up more before the fine tuning.

My biggest pitch raise was about a major 3rd on an old 1900's sled; the A was about an F. The first thing I check for is rusty strings. The last thing I need on a piano like this is broken strings. If the piano is older than, say, 1941, the most I'll raise it to is 435, since that what it was meant for. On the first pass, I'll pull the A up 5 bps or so and pitch raise it to that point. Then, maybe, once it's stable, I'll pull it as close to 435 as I dare. When I PR a piano, I mute all the trios and pairs, then tune all the A strings, then D, then G, and so forth through the cycle, then tune all the unisons. At that point, it's in tune with itself. I might then do another pass, aiming for 435, or I might leave it there for 6 months. IT all depends on the age and condition of the piano.

Although 439 at 68F was a standard here over one hundred years ago, I've heard of this 435 pitch limit many times. Apart from being cast into the plate of one American make of upright for reasons of their own, possibly legal, has anybody any evidence of 435 being an official pitch standard at any time?

I have never had problems using modern standards with an old upright that is capable of a pitch raise, even those with the dire warning on the plate.

With respect to A435 "French Pitch" there's an interesting excerpt from:

Construction, Tuning and Care of the Piano-forte: A Book for Tuners (1887, Norton)

Follow the link and then scroll to page 78 in the book to the chapter on "Pitch"

1887 Norton Standard Pitch?

One more excerpt on A435. This one from Reblitz (1993 ed), though he cites no particular reference:

"Tuning Victorian Pianos

"Most American pianos made between the
late 1800's and the early 1920's were
designed to be tuned to the old A-435 pitch
standard. Tune a Victorian or early-twentieth century
piano having a three-quarter plate to
A-435 (from an A-435 fork), to avoid possible
damage. Tune the temperament as usual; the
beat rates will be very slightly slower than in
the A-440 temperament. If you use an electronic
tuning device, calibrate it 20 cents flat
(A-435 is 20 cents flat of A-440).

"If an old piano is heavily constructed,
with heavy wooden bracing and a full iron
plate, and is in good condition, you probably
can successfully tune it to A-440. If you break
a string in the temperament octave - an
area where strings rarely break - be aware
that you might not be able to raise the pitch
to A-440."

In an earlier chapter he writes:

"In 1925, musicians decided that the international pitch standard, or tuning standard, would be A440.

Again, he cites no references.

Yesterday was the furthest flat in a long time -- 20 years at least. I may have encountered one further off or at least as far but it would have been a long time ago.

Anyway, it was a Wurlitzer spinet from the 60s/70s era. Who knows if it had ever been tuned? It was a good minor third flat. This was for an assisted living place with no extra money and needing something for residents to play or for those coming in to lead singing mainly. Amazingly, the action was functional with little lost motion and reasonable regulation parameters.

In one hour the piano was at pitch with clean unisons, good octaves and reasonable intervals. All by ear, of course. Pitch raising does not require the travail and angst that some people impart to it.

I gave my recommendations and hope they will have me return there to go through it again. I didn't claim it was really in tune and have no idea how it may sound today but at least I left them with a piano that is playable whereas it wasn't before.

Humorous followup to the assisted living pitch raise. . .

Nothing to do with the tuning, but this is one of those places where the doors require a punch code in order to open without the alarm sounding. When I was ready to leave, all the caregivers were caring for people and none were in the public spaces.

I walked around a bit and couldn't find anyone so I went up to a group of residents sitting at a table in the area where I had been tuning and asked them if they knew where someone might be that could help me. One of the residents spoke up and said "We're not supposed to be able to get out on our own but the code is 12345 star. "

Hey! That is the same code as in the "closed" assisted living place I tune! They're probably all the same...

Same here too. Must be the standardization of the market place.

I believe that code is the ET of assisted living....