On Wednesday, April 23, 2014 09:28:18 AM Fred Sturm wrote:
> ... As it happens, the venue has a Wurlitzer studio
> that was last tuned a year ago - unfortunately almost
> exactly a year ago. So it may be "sour" enough as a
> starting point...
Another idea (given the state of the piano there and my understanding of your
tuning style/procedure) would be for you to tune the piano aurally, center
strings only, leaving the outside tri-chord strings and alternate bi-chords
where they are. If it's not 'melodious' enough at that point, you could
'season to taste' on the un-tuned strings.
This should leave the piano with a very definite and reliable pitch center
throughout the scale while presenting a relatively overt and rich smorgasbord
of other pitches & intervals depending on how much 'seasoning' you ultimately
dumped in. :)
Just another possibility, Fred.
I'm sure whatever you do will nicely satisfy the requirements of the score.
--
Regards,
Alan B. Crane, RPT
School of Music
Wichita State University
alan.crane@wichita.edu
Original Message------
My tendency will be simply to take individual strings of a number of unisons and de-tune them by ear. The question is how many need to be done, how far apart, how widespread throughout the piano to get the effect - if you start with a piano that is in tune. So far, the answer is that I don't know.
As it happens, the venue has a Wurlitzer studio that was last tuned a year ago - unfortunately almost exactly a year ago. So it may be "sour" enough as a starting point that all I need to do is add a few real wild ones. Or I might need to take most of the unisons and give them some width, probably left string of one, right string of the next.
I have seen movies and TV shows where there was an out of tune piano, and figured that somebody might have worked out a method as opposed to random. But maybe not. Not a big deal. It is interesting how few bad unisons it takes to make a concert instrument sound pretty awful, but that's a different level of expectation.
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Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm@unm.edu
http://fredsturm.net
"When I smell a flower, I don't think about how it was cultivated. I like to listen to music the same way." -Federico Mompou
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-23-2014 08:34
From: Denis Ikeler
Subject: de-tuning a piano for performance
Fred,
May I respectfully suggest that you detune by paying attention to "cycle" offsets rather than "cents".
Once I was asked to tune the celeste bank of a Rogers church organ. The organ's manual gave the cent offsets to do this. The lower frequencies had far more cent offsets than higher frequencies. This is what will give you an "even" chorus type effect everywhere in the piano.
FWIW,
Denis
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Denis Ikeler
Grand Blanc MI
810-694-1505
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-22-2014 18:14
From: Paul Williams
Subject: de-tuning a piano for performance
Fred;
Try tuning it like the detuning stuffs as is for an RPT tuning exam. Just nasty enough, yet keeping the proper tension on the plate. Is that nasty enough? or just the middle string fine and left one up and the right one down just a few cents. Do they want it sounding like it had not been tuned for 20 years, or never. Remember, a lot of people say, "it was tuned when we bought it!!" LOL Just for fun, leave A-5 just right! That'll screw them up.
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Paul T. Williams RPT
Piano Technician
Glenn Korff School of Music
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68588-0100
pwilliams4@unl.edu
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-22-2014 18:05
From: Fred Sturm
Subject: de-tuning a piano for performance
I am being asked to provide a piano that will sound appropriately out of tune for a particular performance in a couple weeks: "Defiant Requiem, Verdi at Terezin" It derives from a movie, etc., depicting a group of 150 Jews singing said requiem in a concentration camp (google it for more info - lots of sites).
I can certainly do that, just kind of working at random and listening to the results, but wondered if anyone has come up with a protocol for, say, how little change will make a piano sound pretty thoroughly like a honky-tonk, from the point of view of being efficient in both directions (not needing to tune so much when putting it back). Every third unison having a string 3¢ out, every octave more or less at random having one 10 - 15¢ off, four or five notes completely haywire, that sort of thing. Seems like the something that people who work for film studios might have figured out.
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Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm@unm.edu
http://fredsturm.net
"When I smell a flower, I don't think about how it was cultivated. I like to listen to music the same way." -Federico Mompou
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