CAUT

  • 1.  It's the details

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-21-2018 11:29
    I had a sobering experience yesterday. Spent four hours doing "maintenance prep" on a Yamaha C3 in a church where there is a regular concert series (6 - 8 a year). I had spent two days on it five years ago, so I did what seemed most appropriate: filed hammers, brushed knuckles, tweaked regulation (moved all the jacks about 1/2 turn from under the knuckles - i.e. a little less than 1 mm), things like that. Got done, closed up, the  contact guy I was working with asked how it was.

    And then he mentioned "We had been noticing a couple things." In particular, there was one pianist, one performance, where he raised the damper pedal very slowly, and a couple notes stuck out. Sure enough, the bottom two tenor dampers lifted oh so slightly ahead of the rest, and they would do that. So I opened it up and did the necessary.

    But suppose he hadn't happened to mention that? I had looked at damper lift, seemed fine, saw in my notes from last time I had addressed it, so I didn't focus attention there.

    It's the little details: a jack that skips out on a hard blow, the hammer that is badly mated, the unison that goes out, and it doesn't matter how wonderful all the rest of your work might have been. A job that definitely keeps us on our toes, and we need to stay attentive and always try to look at the whole picture. Another last check: play forearms across the keyboard with pedal down (no need to smash, just a fast way to play all the notes), then raise it very slowly. I do that when I work on dampers, but this time I wasn't working on dampers, so I omitted it.

    This morning, tuning in the recital hall, I did that, and found the one damper that apparently someone managed to tilt a bit when doing some kind of extended use: not obvious, but that note rang.

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    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    http://www.artoftuning.com
    "We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Casteneda
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  • 2.  RE: It's the details

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-21-2018 13:19
    Excellent post Fred. Had a very similar damper issue last semester on our newest Steinway D in the recital hall. One of our staff pianists had mentioned something but I had not been able to locate/figure out the intermittent problem. Then our staff vocal coach (a fabulous harpsichordist as well-he is pretty much a "monster"!) mentioned it also-was willing to meet with me and show me exactly when & how it occurred. I was then able to make some minor adjustments & correct the issue. 
    This kind of thing is one reason I am a big believer in having our blank keyboard "report issues" papers available hanging on the wall in back of our recital hall at all times. Not a cure-all of course....but on "those certain occasions" these have been super helpful. Also, extremely helpful with language barrier issues.

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    [Kevin] [Fortenberry] [RPT]
    [Staff Techician]
    [Texas Tech Univ]
    [Lubbock] [TX]
    [8067783962]
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  • 3.  RE: It's the details

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-22-2018 13:01
    Kudos, Fred.

    As you point out, it only takes one misbehaving detail to ruin the rest of the work.

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    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
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