Since you're raising this treatment, I'll add another, perhaps faster, technique I learned many years ago also. It involves lowering the pitch of the individual strings, one at a time. As you lower, "beat" the string vigorously with the hammer repeatedly until the string goes slack, and then do the same repeated hammering as you carefully pull the string back up to pitch. Doesn't require twisting, (which sometimes doesn't change the tone much, in my experience), but almost always gives you a significant bump in the higher overtones also. Something else to add to the general bag of tricks.
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Brian Mott RPT
Madison WI
(608) 246-0506
RPT
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-14-2022 21:36
From: Scott Kerns
Subject: Twist and Shout!
I have rediscovered the amazing results that can come from twisting bass strings! Had a customer that was gifted an old Pease baby grand. It tuned up fine but the bass was really tubby. Checked the bridge and it seemed to be attached well so I thought, oh well, lots of these little grands have a tubby bass section. But the next time I tuned it I decided to twist the first bass string at the break and wow! It came to life! Made an appointment to twist about half the section and it sounds really nice now. There's another old Knabe grand that I have serviced many years at a middle school and the first note in the bass section has always been tubby. (The rest of the bass sounds fine.) So, after my experience with the Pease I decided to twist that one too. Again, wow! It came to life so well that I decided I wouldn't twist the other one or might be too bright. This is something I learned from the start in the school I went to and somehow I fail to think of doing it 🤔🤨 But I'm doin' now!
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"That Tuning Guy"
Scott Kerns
Lincoln, Nebraska
www.thattuningguy.com
PianoMeter, TuneLab & OnlyPure user
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