Pianotech

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Professional string players are among the pickiest musicians when it comes to intonation. However, even among the top musicians they admit to some flexibility: https://new.theviolinchannel.com/vc-vox-pop-what-is-your-preferred-tuning-a-pitch-frequency-q-and-a/

For those who claim not to float, are you saying you take a nice sounding piano at 440.7 HZ at A4 at retune the entire piano to fit narrow targets calculated by your ETD? What do you think you are gaining by doing this? 

Pianos can easily change 2 cents within days with modest temperature and humidity changes. 

The PTG exam's definition of "perfect" is to be within a 2 cent window of A440. An examinee that tunes A4 between 439.75 and 440.25 get a 100% score on pitch. 

I'm hoping that those tuners who have the habit of always imposing A440.0 onto pianos can be convinced of the value of flexibility. There is an old saying I have heard that "the fewer change to the tuning, the more stable the tuning will be." But there is also a big advantage when it comes to the full-service approach to piano service. 

Personally, for most situations I'm satisfied if the piano is between 439.5 and 441.5. 442 is fine on most pianos at the end of summer and beginning of fall. If the tuning is bad enough, and I have to start from scratch, I set the pitch based on my experience with my climate. I don't usually set pitch to below 440, but if it's the humid time of year I certainly don't mind 441. 

Often it can work out to find an area of the tuning that is fairly consistent and use that as the basis for the tuning. For instance, if the entire 5th and 6th octave is 3 cents sharp but the midrange has sagged, I'll bring up the midrange to be in line with the treble. Sometimes the bass has not changed much, and using the bass as the pitch standard can save 15-20 minutes off of a tuning. This is just 2 situations of many. 

A useful thought experiment is when you come to a piano, take a minute and play it while paying attention to the overall sound. Then ask yourself "if I could only tune or voice this piano, what would make the biggest difference to the client?" I regularly file hammers and fit them to the strings prior to tuning. Often the client can immediately hear the improvement in tone and are surprised that I haven't tuned a note yet. 

Floating the pitch and the overall shape of the tuning can give you valuable time that can be utilized to make improvements to your clients' pianos that will surprise them (and you!). It also gives you more time to practice regulating and voicing skills that can take years to develop. Just like practicing the piano, daily practice of voicing and regulating skills can really add up over a long period of time and persistence. 

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Professional string players are among the pickiest musicians when it comes to intonation. However, even among the top musicians they admit to some flexibility: https://new.theviolinchannel.com/vc-vox-pop-what-is-your-preferred-tuning-a-pitch-frequency-q-and-a/

For those who claim not to float, are you saying you take a nice sounding piano at 440.7 HZ at A4 at retune the entire piano to fit narrow targets calculated by your ETD? What do you think you are gaining by doing this? 

Pianos can easily change 2 cents within days with modest temperature and humidity changes. 

The PTG exam's definition of "perfect" is to be within a 2 cent window of A440. An examinee that tunes A4 between 439.75 and 440.25 get a 100% score on pitch. 

I'm hoping that those tuners who have the habit of always imposing A440.0 onto pianos can be convinced of the value of flexibility. There is an old saying I have heard that "the fewer change to the tuning, the more stable the tuning will be." But there is also a big advantage when it comes to the full-service approach to piano service. 

Personally, for most situations I'm satisfied if the piano is between 439.5 and 441.5. 442 is fine on most pianos at the end of summer and beginning of fall. If the tuning is bad enough, and I have to start from scratch, I set the pitch based on my experience with my climate. I don't usually set pitch to below 440, but if it's the humid time of year I certainly don't mind 441. 

Often it can work out to find an area of the tuning that is fairly consistent and use that as the basis for the tuning. For instance, if the entire 5th and 6th octave is 3 cents sharp but the midrange has sagged, I'll bring up the midrange to be in line with the treble. Sometimes the bass has not changed much, and using the bass as the pitch standard can save 15-20 minutes off of a tuning. This is just 2 situations of many. 

A useful thought experiment is when you come to a piano, take a minute and play it while paying attention to the overall sound. Then ask yourself "if I could only tune or voice this piano, what would make the biggest difference to the client?" I regularly file hammers and fit them to the strings prior to tuning. Often the client can immediately hear the improvement in tone and are surprised that I haven't tuned a note yet. 

Floating the pitch and the overall shape of the tuning can give you valuable time that can be utilized to make improvements to your clients' pianos that will surprise them (and you!). It also gives you more time to practice regulating and voicing skills that can take years to develop. Just like practicing the piano, daily practice of voicing and regulating skills can really add up over a long period of time and persistence. 

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Professional string players are among the pickiest musicians when it comes to intonation. However, even among the top musicians they admit to some flexibility: https://new.theviolinchannel.com/vc-vox-pop-what-is-your-preferred-tuning-a-pitch-frequency-q-and-a/

For those who claim not to float, are you saying you take a nice sounding piano at 440.7 HZ at A4 at retune the entire piano to fit narrow targets calculated by your ETD? What do you think you are gaining by doing this? 

Pianos can easily change 2 cents within days with modest temperature and humidity changes. 

The PTG exam's definition of "perfect" is to be within a 2 cent window of A440. An examinee that tunes A4 between 439.75 and 440.25 get a 100% score on pitch. 

I'm hoping that those tuners who have the habit of always imposing A440.0 onto pianos can be convinced of the value of flexibility. There is an old saying I have heard that "the fewer change to the tuning, the more stable the tuning will be." But there is also a big advantage when it comes to the full-service approach to piano service. 

Personally, for most situations I'm satisfied if the piano is between 439.5 and 441.5. 442 is fine on most pianos at the end of summer and beginning of fall. If the tuning is bad enough, and I have to start from scratch, I set the pitch based on my experience with my climate. I don't usually set pitch to below 440, but if it's the humid time of year I certainly don't mind 441. 

Often it can work out to find an area of the tuning that is fairly consistent and use that as the basis for the tuning. For instance, if the entire 5th and 6th octave is 3 cents sharp but the midrange has sagged, I'll bring up the midrange to be in line with the treble. Sometimes the bass has not changed much, and using the bass as the pitch standard can save 15-20 minutes off of a tuning. This is just 2 situations of many. 

A useful thought experiment is when you come to a piano, take a minute and play it while paying attention to the overall sound. Then ask yourself "if I could only tune or voice this piano, what would make the biggest difference to the client?" I regularly file hammers and fit them to the strings prior to tuning. Often the client can immediately hear the improvement in tone and are surprised that I haven't tuned a note yet. 

Floating the pitch and the overall shape of the tuning can give you valuable time that can be utilized to make improvements to your clients' pianos that will surprise them (and you!). It also gives you more time to practice regulating and voicing skills that can take years to develop. Just like practicing the piano, daily practice of voicing and regulating skills can really add up over a long period of time and persistence. 

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

For 7 years I floated pitch on concert pianos between 440.8 and 441.5 in this one concert venue and never heard 1 complaint. That orchestra has a full schedule of 10 Masterworks per year(usually 4-5 w/piano) and 5 Pops programs per year(all w/piano), not to mention all the 1-nighters that come through that venue. When I first started that gig, I was hell bent on maintaining 440.8. That's where the pianos usually started in the beginning of the season(October in Florida after a 4 month hiatus during the summer). In my mind I was making sure the pitch on any of those pianos could be counted on. A few years of growing into the gig and the pitch did not matter..the stability did, and always did. So, I floated. 

Your mileage may vary depending on the persnickitiest players. Oboist in that orchestra never had a problem with me. That to me is the test. 

Professional string players are among the pickiest musicians when it comes to intonation. However, even among the top musicians they admit to some flexibility: https://new.theviolinchannel.com/vc-vox-pop-what-is-your-preferred-tuning-a-pitch-frequency-q-and-a/

For those who claim not to float, are you saying you take a nice sounding piano at 440.7 HZ at A4 at retune the entire piano to fit narrow targets calculated by your ETD? What do you think you are gaining by doing this? 

Pianos can easily change 2 cents within days with modest temperature and humidity changes. 

The PTG exam's definition of "perfect" is to be within a 2 cent window of A440. An examinee that tunes A4 between 439.75 and 440.25 get a 100% score on pitch. 

I'm hoping that those tuners who have the habit of always imposing A440.0 onto pianos can be convinced of the value of flexibility. There is an old saying I have heard that "the fewer change to the tuning, the more stable the tuning will be." But there is also a big advantage when it comes to the full-service approach to piano service. 

Personally, for most situations I'm satisfied if the piano is between 439.5 and 441.5. 442 is fine on most pianos at the end of summer and beginning of fall. If the tuning is bad enough, and I have to start from scratch, I set the pitch based on my experience with my climate. I don't usually set pitch to below 440, but if it's the humid time of year I certainly don't mind 441. 

Often it can work out to find an area of the tuning that is fairly consistent and use that as the basis for the tuning. For instance, if the entire 5th and 6th octave is 3 cents sharp but the midrange has sagged, I'll bring up the midrange to be in line with the treble. Sometimes the bass has not changed much, and using the bass as the pitch standard can save 15-20 minutes off of a tuning. This is just 2 situations of many. 

A useful thought experiment is when you come to a piano, take a minute and play it while paying attention to the overall sound. Then ask yourself "if I could only tune or voice this piano, what would make the biggest difference to the client?" I regularly file hammers and fit them to the strings prior to tuning. Often the client can immediately hear the improvement in tone and are surprised that I haven't tuned a note yet. 

Floating the pitch and the overall shape of the tuning can give you valuable time that can be utilized to make improvements to your clients' pianos that will surprise them (and you!). It also gives you more time to practice regulating and voicing skills that can take years to develop. Just like practicing the piano, daily practice of voicing and regulating skills can really add up over a long period of time and persistence. 

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

"I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch."

I addressed this issue in my first post, but it was a link so folks may have not actually followed it. I'll cut and paste it here. The Gist is that the very best string players and many concert masters rarely (if ever) use A440. 

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with A440. You could look at A440 as being the center of a bullseye that is about 4 cents wide. Moreover, at this point in 2024, I see A441 as being as legit as 440 unless I'm tuning for a recording that requires A440 specifically. Again - PTG requires that pitch be set at between 439.75 and 440.25 to be considered "perfect" or 100%. 

I question the idea that clients hire us to tune the piano at A440. Clients have almost no understanding of what is involved with professional piano work. They hire us because they want their piano to sound and play more beautifully.

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

'What is your preferred tuning A-pitch frequency?"

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

Violin Virtuoso Itzhak Perlman:

"I like A=442 as it is slightly on the sharp side, but A=440 is fine also ... what's important is that everything is in tune ..."

British Cello Soloist Steven Isserlis:

"I don't mind, I go from A=430 up to A=443 ... just not down as far as A=415 as I'd find that distracting ..."

German Violin Soloist David Garrett: 

"Normally I go for A=442 ... I know in Berlin the orchestras are quite high at A=444 ... but A=442 I think is a good medium ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist James Ehnes:

"Anywhere between A=440 and A=442 is fine with me ... my violin is set up to work best at that range of tension, and that is what my ear is most used to ... below A=440 starts to sound and feel "soggy" to me, and above A=442 can seem shrill ..."

Korean-American Violin Soloist Sarah Chang:

"A=442 ... it keeps my violin sounding bright without over-stressing the wind and brass players ..."

Australian Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Ray Chen:

"A=442 ... it makes everything sound sweeter ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist William Hagen:

"I think A=442 is great ... I really don't like a flat A, but when the A is too sharp it can make everything sound really severe and tight ..."

Berlin Philharmonic Concertmaster, VC Artist Violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley:

"At the moment, I'm most comfortable with A=442 - a compromise between higher European A-frequencies, and lower American ones .... I feel if the A gets too high (A=444) it pinches the resonance of the instrument ..."

Milwaukee Symphony Concertmaster, Frank Almond:

"I like a little over A=441 ... the funny thing is that I've noticed most groups that tune to A=440 or A=441 end up playing a little over A=441 anyway ... in Europe it always seems like the sky's the limit…..."

Dallas Symphony Concertmaster, Alexander Kerr:

"A=441 ... it lends just enough brightness to the sound without losing the sensation of being able to dig into the string..."

Canadian Violinist, VC Artist Nikki Chooi:

"A=441 ... it's not too high, not too low - just right ..."

American Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Stefan Jackiw:

"I find that this changes with humidity ... during dry weather I prefer A=440 ... during humid weather I prefer A=442 or even higher ..."

VC Artist Cellist Kian Soltani:

"A=442 ... simply cause it's the best ..."

Time For Three Violinist, VC Artist Charles Yang:

"I'm currently on tour in Europe and the band tunes to A=442 - I like it! ... it makes my instrument sound brighter ..."

French Violinist Augustin Dumay:

"I prefer the A=440 which is used in England, as it seems to me musically balanced, and protective of an exaggerated tension for the instruments ..."

British Violin Soloist Nicola Benedetti:

"The UK A=440 is a little flat for my liking but I have to stay flexible, otherwise I'd be in trouble ... I don't have perfect pitch so the adjustment is less painful for me than it can be for some ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist Lara St. John:

"I find A=441.5 to be my perfect A - but I am pretty adjustable ... A=441.5 sounds really good on a violin, and it's kind of mid-Atlantic ..."

American Violin Soloist Anne Akiko Meyers:

"A=442 ... it's a happy place that's just higher than 441 but lower than 443 ..."

Russian-American Violin Soloist Philippe Quint:

"My preferred pitch is A=442 ... however I now frequently ask to meet with the Principal Oboe before the concert to get the orchestra's "Official A" ... so not to spend 5 minutes re-tuning my violin onstage ..."

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine:

"I most frequently perform at A=440, 441, 442 and 415, with occasional forays into A=430 and even A=392 ... A=440 has always been my favorite because of its resonance .... trying A=460 is on my bucket list though ..."

VC Artist Violinist Benjamin Beilman:

"I'm not so picky – probably somewhere between A=441 and A=442 ... A=440 sometimes feels a little sleepy and anything over A=443 feels over caffeinated ..."

VC Artist Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu:

"This particular violin likes somewhere between A=441.5 and A=442 .... I find it gives the most natural ring and vibration ... but hey! Most of the time I don't get to choose ..."

Cellist Zuill Bailey:

"My preference is A=441 ... I find that harmonics ring low and I want to make sure that nothing sounds flat ... "

Violin Soloist Vadim Gluzman:

"I am blessed (or cursed?) with perfect pitch so it is a sensitive subject ... but I am happy between A=440 up to A=443/444 ... string players often tend to like higher tuning, but it often causes our intonation to go quite a bit "north" ..."

Violin Soloist Arnaud Sussmann:

"I like A=441 ... it's a nice middle ground between the very high "A" people tune to in Europe and the standard A=440 ... I feel instruments start sounding a bit under too much tension when the pitch rises above A=443 ..."

New England Conservatory Faculty Member, Violinist Paul Biss:

"I have learned long ago not to insist on one ... in general, though, I prefer not to go higher than A=442 ... I think the instrument rings better that way ..."

Curtis Institute Faculty Member, Violinist Ida Kavafian:

"I think we should be able to adjust to any pitch ... I can't stand when students make an excuse for the A not being where they expect - it's a poor excuse for bad intonation ... however, when I'm in charge, I ask for A=441 ..."

Veteran New England Conservatory Cello Pedagogue, Laurence Lesser:

"I don't have perfect pitch, but since that's kind of like "hearing" colours, I've gotten used to A=441 ... above and below just sounds different  .... A=441 is the colour I like ..."

VC Artist Violinist Paul Huang:

"A=442 or A=443 if possible ... for me it just rings better when the A is a higher frequency and it sounds more brilliant ...."

VC Artist Violinist Tessa Lark:

"Flexibility in this realm is important so I don't have a preference ... but my natural A frequency when I sing is A=432 .... the perfect pitch in me was relieved to find out that many of my favorite composers (Bach, Mozart, Debussy & Chopin) wrote their masterpieces using 432Hz tuning ..."

VC Artist Violinist Bella Hristova:

"I like A=441 ... I think the violin sounds really brilliant at this frequency ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist Kerson Leong:

"When I practice alone, I always lean towards a lower A pitch for no apparent reason ..."

VC Artist Violinist Fedor Rudin:

"I don't have one, I feel as comfortable with A=443 as with A=415 ... but the tuning does help create a different atmosphere and sound projection ...."

VC Artist Violinist Igor Pikayzen:

"I don't swear by a particular pitch frequency, and when you travel you obviously graciously accept the A that the orchestra tunes to .... but if I would have to choose I'd go with A=442 or A=443 - for me, it just sounds more in focus to my ear!"

VC Young Artist Violinist In Mo Yang:

"???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

"I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch."

I addressed this issue in my first post, but it was a link so folks may have not actually followed it. I'll cut and paste it here. The Gist is that the very best string players and many concert masters rarely (if ever) use A440. 

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with A440. You could look at A440 as being the center of a bullseye that is about 4 cents wide. Moreover, at this point in 2024, I see A441 as being as legit as 440 unless I'm tuning for a recording that requires A440 specifically. Again - PTG requires that pitch be set at between 439.75 and 440.25 to be considered "perfect" or 100%. 

I question the idea that clients hire us to tune the piano at A440. Clients have almost no understanding of what is involved with professional piano work. They hire us because they want their piano to sound and play more beautifully.

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

'What is your preferred tuning A-pitch frequency?"

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

Violin Virtuoso Itzhak Perlman:

"I like A=442 as it is slightly on the sharp side, but A=440 is fine also ... what's important is that everything is in tune ..."

British Cello Soloist Steven Isserlis:

"I don't mind, I go from A=430 up to A=443 ... just not down as far as A=415 as I'd find that distracting ..."

German Violin Soloist David Garrett: 

"Normally I go for A=442 ... I know in Berlin the orchestras are quite high at A=444 ... but A=442 I think is a good medium ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist James Ehnes:

"Anywhere between A=440 and A=442 is fine with me ... my violin is set up to work best at that range of tension, and that is what my ear is most used to ... below A=440 starts to sound and feel "soggy" to me, and above A=442 can seem shrill ..."

Korean-American Violin Soloist Sarah Chang:

"A=442 ... it keeps my violin sounding bright without over-stressing the wind and brass players ..."

Australian Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Ray Chen:

"A=442 ... it makes everything sound sweeter ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist William Hagen:

"I think A=442 is great ... I really don't like a flat A, but when the A is too sharp it can make everything sound really severe and tight ..."

Berlin Philharmonic Concertmaster, VC Artist Violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley:

"At the moment, I'm most comfortable with A=442 - a compromise between higher European A-frequencies, and lower American ones .... I feel if the A gets too high (A=444) it pinches the resonance of the instrument ..."

Milwaukee Symphony Concertmaster, Frank Almond:

"I like a little over A=441 ... the funny thing is that I've noticed most groups that tune to A=440 or A=441 end up playing a little over A=441 anyway ... in Europe it always seems like the sky's the limit…..."

Dallas Symphony Concertmaster, Alexander Kerr:

"A=441 ... it lends just enough brightness to the sound without losing the sensation of being able to dig into the string..."

Canadian Violinist, VC Artist Nikki Chooi:

"A=441 ... it's not too high, not too low - just right ..."

American Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Stefan Jackiw:

"I find that this changes with humidity ... during dry weather I prefer A=440 ... during humid weather I prefer A=442 or even higher ..."

VC Artist Cellist Kian Soltani:

"A=442 ... simply cause it's the best ..."

Time For Three Violinist, VC Artist Charles Yang:

"I'm currently on tour in Europe and the band tunes to A=442 - I like it! ... it makes my instrument sound brighter ..."

French Violinist Augustin Dumay:

"I prefer the A=440 which is used in England, as it seems to me musically balanced, and protective of an exaggerated tension for the instruments ..."

British Violin Soloist Nicola Benedetti:

"The UK A=440 is a little flat for my liking but I have to stay flexible, otherwise I'd be in trouble ... I don't have perfect pitch so the adjustment is less painful for me than it can be for some ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist Lara St. John:

"I find A=441.5 to be my perfect A - but I am pretty adjustable ... A=441.5 sounds really good on a violin, and it's kind of mid-Atlantic ..."

American Violin Soloist Anne Akiko Meyers:

"A=442 ... it's a happy place that's just higher than 441 but lower than 443 ..."

Russian-American Violin Soloist Philippe Quint:

"My preferred pitch is A=442 ... however I now frequently ask to meet with the Principal Oboe before the concert to get the orchestra's "Official A" ... so not to spend 5 minutes re-tuning my violin onstage ..."

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine:

"I most frequently perform at A=440, 441, 442 and 415, with occasional forays into A=430 and even A=392 ... A=440 has always been my favorite because of its resonance .... trying A=460 is on my bucket list though ..."

VC Artist Violinist Benjamin Beilman:

"I'm not so picky – probably somewhere between A=441 and A=442 ... A=440 sometimes feels a little sleepy and anything over A=443 feels over caffeinated ..."

VC Artist Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu:

"This particular violin likes somewhere between A=441.5 and A=442 .... I find it gives the most natural ring and vibration ... but hey! Most of the time I don't get to choose ..."

Cellist Zuill Bailey:

"My preference is A=441 ... I find that harmonics ring low and I want to make sure that nothing sounds flat ... "

Violin Soloist Vadim Gluzman:

"I am blessed (or cursed?) with perfect pitch so it is a sensitive subject ... but I am happy between A=440 up to A=443/444 ... string players often tend to like higher tuning, but it often causes our intonation to go quite a bit "north" ..."

Violin Soloist Arnaud Sussmann:

"I like A=441 ... it's a nice middle ground between the very high "A" people tune to in Europe and the standard A=440 ... I feel instruments start sounding a bit under too much tension when the pitch rises above A=443 ..."

New England Conservatory Faculty Member, Violinist Paul Biss:

"I have learned long ago not to insist on one ... in general, though, I prefer not to go higher than A=442 ... I think the instrument rings better that way ..."

Curtis Institute Faculty Member, Violinist Ida Kavafian:

"I think we should be able to adjust to any pitch ... I can't stand when students make an excuse for the A not being where they expect - it's a poor excuse for bad intonation ... however, when I'm in charge, I ask for A=441 ..."

Veteran New England Conservatory Cello Pedagogue, Laurence Lesser:

"I don't have perfect pitch, but since that's kind of like "hearing" colours, I've gotten used to A=441 ... above and below just sounds different  .... A=441 is the colour I like ..."

VC Artist Violinist Paul Huang:

"A=442 or A=443 if possible ... for me it just rings better when the A is a higher frequency and it sounds more brilliant ...."

VC Artist Violinist Tessa Lark:

"Flexibility in this realm is important so I don't have a preference ... but my natural A frequency when I sing is A=432 .... the perfect pitch in me was relieved to find out that many of my favorite composers (Bach, Mozart, Debussy & Chopin) wrote their masterpieces using 432Hz tuning ..."

VC Artist Violinist Bella Hristova:

"I like A=441 ... I think the violin sounds really brilliant at this frequency ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist Kerson Leong:

"When I practice alone, I always lean towards a lower A pitch for no apparent reason ..."

VC Artist Violinist Fedor Rudin:

"I don't have one, I feel as comfortable with A=443 as with A=415 ... but the tuning does help create a different atmosphere and sound projection ...."

VC Artist Violinist Igor Pikayzen:

"I don't swear by a particular pitch frequency, and when you travel you obviously graciously accept the A that the orchestra tunes to .... but if I would have to choose I'd go with A=442 or A=443 - for me, it just sounds more in focus to my ear!"

VC Young Artist Violinist In Mo Yang:

"???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

"I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch."

I addressed this issue in my first post, but it was a link so folks may have not actually followed it. I'll cut and paste it here. The Gist is that the very best string players and many concert masters rarely (if ever) use A440. 

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with A440. You could look at A440 as being the center of a bullseye that is about 4 cents wide. Moreover, at this point in 2024, I see A441 as being as legit as 440 unless I'm tuning for a recording that requires A440 specifically. Again - PTG requires that pitch be set at between 439.75 and 440.25 to be considered "perfect" or 100%. 

I question the idea that clients hire us to tune the piano at A440. Clients have almost no understanding of what is involved with professional piano work. They hire us because they want their piano to sound and play more beautifully.

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

'What is your preferred tuning A-pitch frequency?"

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

Violin Virtuoso Itzhak Perlman:

"I like A=442 as it is slightly on the sharp side, but A=440 is fine also ... what's important is that everything is in tune ..."

British Cello Soloist Steven Isserlis:

"I don't mind, I go from A=430 up to A=443 ... just not down as far as A=415 as I'd find that distracting ..."

German Violin Soloist David Garrett: 

"Normally I go for A=442 ... I know in Berlin the orchestras are quite high at A=444 ... but A=442 I think is a good medium ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist James Ehnes:

"Anywhere between A=440 and A=442 is fine with me ... my violin is set up to work best at that range of tension, and that is what my ear is most used to ... below A=440 starts to sound and feel "soggy" to me, and above A=442 can seem shrill ..."

Korean-American Violin Soloist Sarah Chang:

"A=442 ... it keeps my violin sounding bright without over-stressing the wind and brass players ..."

Australian Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Ray Chen:

"A=442 ... it makes everything sound sweeter ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist William Hagen:

"I think A=442 is great ... I really don't like a flat A, but when the A is too sharp it can make everything sound really severe and tight ..."

Berlin Philharmonic Concertmaster, VC Artist Violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley:

"At the moment, I'm most comfortable with A=442 - a compromise between higher European A-frequencies, and lower American ones .... I feel if the A gets too high (A=444) it pinches the resonance of the instrument ..."

Milwaukee Symphony Concertmaster, Frank Almond:

"I like a little over A=441 ... the funny thing is that I've noticed most groups that tune to A=440 or A=441 end up playing a little over A=441 anyway ... in Europe it always seems like the sky's the limit…..."

Dallas Symphony Concertmaster, Alexander Kerr:

"A=441 ... it lends just enough brightness to the sound without losing the sensation of being able to dig into the string..."

Canadian Violinist, VC Artist Nikki Chooi:

"A=441 ... it's not too high, not too low - just right ..."

American Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Stefan Jackiw:

"I find that this changes with humidity ... during dry weather I prefer A=440 ... during humid weather I prefer A=442 or even higher ..."

VC Artist Cellist Kian Soltani:

"A=442 ... simply cause it's the best ..."

Time For Three Violinist, VC Artist Charles Yang:

"I'm currently on tour in Europe and the band tunes to A=442 - I like it! ... it makes my instrument sound brighter ..."

French Violinist Augustin Dumay:

"I prefer the A=440 which is used in England, as it seems to me musically balanced, and protective of an exaggerated tension for the instruments ..."

British Violin Soloist Nicola Benedetti:

"The UK A=440 is a little flat for my liking but I have to stay flexible, otherwise I'd be in trouble ... I don't have perfect pitch so the adjustment is less painful for me than it can be for some ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist Lara St. John:

"I find A=441.5 to be my perfect A - but I am pretty adjustable ... A=441.5 sounds really good on a violin, and it's kind of mid-Atlantic ..."

American Violin Soloist Anne Akiko Meyers:

"A=442 ... it's a happy place that's just higher than 441 but lower than 443 ..."

Russian-American Violin Soloist Philippe Quint:

"My preferred pitch is A=442 ... however I now frequently ask to meet with the Principal Oboe before the concert to get the orchestra's "Official A" ... so not to spend 5 minutes re-tuning my violin onstage ..."

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine:

"I most frequently perform at A=440, 441, 442 and 415, with occasional forays into A=430 and even A=392 ... A=440 has always been my favorite because of its resonance .... trying A=460 is on my bucket list though ..."

VC Artist Violinist Benjamin Beilman:

"I'm not so picky – probably somewhere between A=441 and A=442 ... A=440 sometimes feels a little sleepy and anything over A=443 feels over caffeinated ..."

VC Artist Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu:

"This particular violin likes somewhere between A=441.5 and A=442 .... I find it gives the most natural ring and vibration ... but hey! Most of the time I don't get to choose ..."

Cellist Zuill Bailey:

"My preference is A=441 ... I find that harmonics ring low and I want to make sure that nothing sounds flat ... "

Violin Soloist Vadim Gluzman:

"I am blessed (or cursed?) with perfect pitch so it is a sensitive subject ... but I am happy between A=440 up to A=443/444 ... string players often tend to like higher tuning, but it often causes our intonation to go quite a bit "north" ..."

Violin Soloist Arnaud Sussmann:

"I like A=441 ... it's a nice middle ground between the very high "A" people tune to in Europe and the standard A=440 ... I feel instruments start sounding a bit under too much tension when the pitch rises above A=443 ..."

New England Conservatory Faculty Member, Violinist Paul Biss:

"I have learned long ago not to insist on one ... in general, though, I prefer not to go higher than A=442 ... I think the instrument rings better that way ..."

Curtis Institute Faculty Member, Violinist Ida Kavafian:

"I think we should be able to adjust to any pitch ... I can't stand when students make an excuse for the A not being where they expect - it's a poor excuse for bad intonation ... however, when I'm in charge, I ask for A=441 ..."

Veteran New England Conservatory Cello Pedagogue, Laurence Lesser:

"I don't have perfect pitch, but since that's kind of like "hearing" colours, I've gotten used to A=441 ... above and below just sounds different  .... A=441 is the colour I like ..."

VC Artist Violinist Paul Huang:

"A=442 or A=443 if possible ... for me it just rings better when the A is a higher frequency and it sounds more brilliant ...."

VC Artist Violinist Tessa Lark:

"Flexibility in this realm is important so I don't have a preference ... but my natural A frequency when I sing is A=432 .... the perfect pitch in me was relieved to find out that many of my favorite composers (Bach, Mozart, Debussy & Chopin) wrote their masterpieces using 432Hz tuning ..."

VC Artist Violinist Bella Hristova:

"I like A=441 ... I think the violin sounds really brilliant at this frequency ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist Kerson Leong:

"When I practice alone, I always lean towards a lower A pitch for no apparent reason ..."

VC Artist Violinist Fedor Rudin:

"I don't have one, I feel as comfortable with A=443 as with A=415 ... but the tuning does help create a different atmosphere and sound projection ...."

VC Artist Violinist Igor Pikayzen:

"I don't swear by a particular pitch frequency, and when you travel you obviously graciously accept the A that the orchestra tunes to .... but if I would have to choose I'd go with A=442 or A=443 - for me, it just sounds more in focus to my ear!"

VC Young Artist Violinist In Mo Yang:

"???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

VC Young Artist Violinist In Mo Yang:

"???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Great answer, he's not afraid of being different from the others, and he ended up with the best answer.

"I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch."

I addressed this issue in my first post, but it was a link so folks may have not actually followed it. I'll cut and paste it here. The Gist is that the very best string players and many concert masters rarely (if ever) use A440. 

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with A440. You could look at A440 as being the center of a bullseye that is about 4 cents wide. Moreover, at this point in 2024, I see A441 as being as legit as 440 unless I'm tuning for a recording that requires A440 specifically. Again - PTG requires that pitch be set at between 439.75 and 440.25 to be considered "perfect" or 100%. 

I question the idea that clients hire us to tune the piano at A440. Clients have almost no understanding of what is involved with professional piano work. They hire us because they want their piano to sound and play more beautifully.

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

'What is your preferred tuning A-pitch frequency?"

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

Violin Virtuoso Itzhak Perlman:

"I like A=442 as it is slightly on the sharp side, but A=440 is fine also ... what's important is that everything is in tune ..."

British Cello Soloist Steven Isserlis:

"I don't mind, I go from A=430 up to A=443 ... just not down as far as A=415 as I'd find that distracting ..."

German Violin Soloist David Garrett: 

"Normally I go for A=442 ... I know in Berlin the orchestras are quite high at A=444 ... but A=442 I think is a good medium ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist James Ehnes:

"Anywhere between A=440 and A=442 is fine with me ... my violin is set up to work best at that range of tension, and that is what my ear is most used to ... below A=440 starts to sound and feel "soggy" to me, and above A=442 can seem shrill ..."

Korean-American Violin Soloist Sarah Chang:

"A=442 ... it keeps my violin sounding bright without over-stressing the wind and brass players ..."

Australian Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Ray Chen:

"A=442 ... it makes everything sound sweeter ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist William Hagen:

"I think A=442 is great ... I really don't like a flat A, but when the A is too sharp it can make everything sound really severe and tight ..."

Berlin Philharmonic Concertmaster, VC Artist Violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley:

"At the moment, I'm most comfortable with A=442 - a compromise between higher European A-frequencies, and lower American ones .... I feel if the A gets too high (A=444) it pinches the resonance of the instrument ..."

Milwaukee Symphony Concertmaster, Frank Almond:

"I like a little over A=441 ... the funny thing is that I've noticed most groups that tune to A=440 or A=441 end up playing a little over A=441 anyway ... in Europe it always seems like the sky's the limit…..."

Dallas Symphony Concertmaster, Alexander Kerr:

"A=441 ... it lends just enough brightness to the sound without losing the sensation of being able to dig into the string..."

Canadian Violinist, VC Artist Nikki Chooi:

"A=441 ... it's not too high, not too low - just right ..."

American Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Stefan Jackiw:

"I find that this changes with humidity ... during dry weather I prefer A=440 ... during humid weather I prefer A=442 or even higher ..."

VC Artist Cellist Kian Soltani:

"A=442 ... simply cause it's the best ..."

Time For Three Violinist, VC Artist Charles Yang:

"I'm currently on tour in Europe and the band tunes to A=442 - I like it! ... it makes my instrument sound brighter ..."

French Violinist Augustin Dumay:

"I prefer the A=440 which is used in England, as it seems to me musically balanced, and protective of an exaggerated tension for the instruments ..."

British Violin Soloist Nicola Benedetti:

"The UK A=440 is a little flat for my liking but I have to stay flexible, otherwise I'd be in trouble ... I don't have perfect pitch so the adjustment is less painful for me than it can be for some ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist Lara St. John:

"I find A=441.5 to be my perfect A - but I am pretty adjustable ... A=441.5 sounds really good on a violin, and it's kind of mid-Atlantic ..."

American Violin Soloist Anne Akiko Meyers:

"A=442 ... it's a happy place that's just higher than 441 but lower than 443 ..."

Russian-American Violin Soloist Philippe Quint:

"My preferred pitch is A=442 ... however I now frequently ask to meet with the Principal Oboe before the concert to get the orchestra's "Official A" ... so not to spend 5 minutes re-tuning my violin onstage ..."

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine:

"I most frequently perform at A=440, 441, 442 and 415, with occasional forays into A=430 and even A=392 ... A=440 has always been my favorite because of its resonance .... trying A=460 is on my bucket list though ..."

VC Artist Violinist Benjamin Beilman:

"I'm not so picky – probably somewhere between A=441 and A=442 ... A=440 sometimes feels a little sleepy and anything over A=443 feels over caffeinated ..."

VC Artist Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu:

"This particular violin likes somewhere between A=441.5 and A=442 .... I find it gives the most natural ring and vibration ... but hey! Most of the time I don't get to choose ..."

Cellist Zuill Bailey:

"My preference is A=441 ... I find that harmonics ring low and I want to make sure that nothing sounds flat ... "

Violin Soloist Vadim Gluzman:

"I am blessed (or cursed?) with perfect pitch so it is a sensitive subject ... but I am happy between A=440 up to A=443/444 ... string players often tend to like higher tuning, but it often causes our intonation to go quite a bit "north" ..."

Violin Soloist Arnaud Sussmann:

"I like A=441 ... it's a nice middle ground between the very high "A" people tune to in Europe and the standard A=440 ... I feel instruments start sounding a bit under too much tension when the pitch rises above A=443 ..."

New England Conservatory Faculty Member, Violinist Paul Biss:

"I have learned long ago not to insist on one ... in general, though, I prefer not to go higher than A=442 ... I think the instrument rings better that way ..."

Curtis Institute Faculty Member, Violinist Ida Kavafian:

"I think we should be able to adjust to any pitch ... I can't stand when students make an excuse for the A not being where they expect - it's a poor excuse for bad intonation ... however, when I'm in charge, I ask for A=441 ..."

Veteran New England Conservatory Cello Pedagogue, Laurence Lesser:

"I don't have perfect pitch, but since that's kind of like "hearing" colours, I've gotten used to A=441 ... above and below just sounds different  .... A=441 is the colour I like ..."

VC Artist Violinist Paul Huang:

"A=442 or A=443 if possible ... for me it just rings better when the A is a higher frequency and it sounds more brilliant ...."

VC Artist Violinist Tessa Lark:

"Flexibility in this realm is important so I don't have a preference ... but my natural A frequency when I sing is A=432 .... the perfect pitch in me was relieved to find out that many of my favorite composers (Bach, Mozart, Debussy & Chopin) wrote their masterpieces using 432Hz tuning ..."

VC Artist Violinist Bella Hristova:

"I like A=441 ... I think the violin sounds really brilliant at this frequency ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist Kerson Leong:

"When I practice alone, I always lean towards a lower A pitch for no apparent reason ..."

VC Artist Violinist Fedor Rudin:

"I don't have one, I feel as comfortable with A=443 as with A=415 ... but the tuning does help create a different atmosphere and sound projection ...."

VC Artist Violinist Igor Pikayzen:

"I don't swear by a particular pitch frequency, and when you travel you obviously graciously accept the A that the orchestra tunes to .... but if I would have to choose I'd go with A=442 or A=443 - for me, it just sounds more in focus to my ear!"

VC Young Artist Violinist In Mo Yang:

"???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

"I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch."

I addressed this issue in my first post, but it was a link so folks may have not actually followed it. I'll cut and paste it here. The Gist is that the very best string players and many concert masters rarely (if ever) use A440. 

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with A440. You could look at A440 as being the center of a bullseye that is about 4 cents wide. Moreover, at this point in 2024, I see A441 as being as legit as 440 unless I'm tuning for a recording that requires A440 specifically. Again - PTG requires that pitch be set at between 439.75 and 440.25 to be considered "perfect" or 100%. 

I question the idea that clients hire us to tune the piano at A440. Clients have almost no understanding of what is involved with professional piano work. They hire us because they want their piano to sound and play more beautifully.

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

'What is your preferred tuning A-pitch frequency?"

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

Violin Virtuoso Itzhak Perlman:

"I like A=442 as it is slightly on the sharp side, but A=440 is fine also ... what's important is that everything is in tune ..."

British Cello Soloist Steven Isserlis:

"I don't mind, I go from A=430 up to A=443 ... just not down as far as A=415 as I'd find that distracting ..."

German Violin Soloist David Garrett: 

"Normally I go for A=442 ... I know in Berlin the orchestras are quite high at A=444 ... but A=442 I think is a good medium ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist James Ehnes:

"Anywhere between A=440 and A=442 is fine with me ... my violin is set up to work best at that range of tension, and that is what my ear is most used to ... below A=440 starts to sound and feel "soggy" to me, and above A=442 can seem shrill ..."

Korean-American Violin Soloist Sarah Chang:

"A=442 ... it keeps my violin sounding bright without over-stressing the wind and brass players ..."

Australian Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Ray Chen:

"A=442 ... it makes everything sound sweeter ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist William Hagen:

"I think A=442 is great ... I really don't like a flat A, but when the A is too sharp it can make everything sound really severe and tight ..."

Berlin Philharmonic Concertmaster, VC Artist Violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley:

"At the moment, I'm most comfortable with A=442 - a compromise between higher European A-frequencies, and lower American ones .... I feel if the A gets too high (A=444) it pinches the resonance of the instrument ..."

Milwaukee Symphony Concertmaster, Frank Almond:

"I like a little over A=441 ... the funny thing is that I've noticed most groups that tune to A=440 or A=441 end up playing a little over A=441 anyway ... in Europe it always seems like the sky's the limit…..."

Dallas Symphony Concertmaster, Alexander Kerr:

"A=441 ... it lends just enough brightness to the sound without losing the sensation of being able to dig into the string..."

Canadian Violinist, VC Artist Nikki Chooi:

"A=441 ... it's not too high, not too low - just right ..."

American Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Stefan Jackiw:

"I find that this changes with humidity ... during dry weather I prefer A=440 ... during humid weather I prefer A=442 or even higher ..."

VC Artist Cellist Kian Soltani:

"A=442 ... simply cause it's the best ..."

Time For Three Violinist, VC Artist Charles Yang:

"I'm currently on tour in Europe and the band tunes to A=442 - I like it! ... it makes my instrument sound brighter ..."

French Violinist Augustin Dumay:

"I prefer the A=440 which is used in England, as it seems to me musically balanced, and protective of an exaggerated tension for the instruments ..."

British Violin Soloist Nicola Benedetti:

"The UK A=440 is a little flat for my liking but I have to stay flexible, otherwise I'd be in trouble ... I don't have perfect pitch so the adjustment is less painful for me than it can be for some ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist Lara St. John:

"I find A=441.5 to be my perfect A - but I am pretty adjustable ... A=441.5 sounds really good on a violin, and it's kind of mid-Atlantic ..."

American Violin Soloist Anne Akiko Meyers:

"A=442 ... it's a happy place that's just higher than 441 but lower than 443 ..."

Russian-American Violin Soloist Philippe Quint:

"My preferred pitch is A=442 ... however I now frequently ask to meet with the Principal Oboe before the concert to get the orchestra's "Official A" ... so not to spend 5 minutes re-tuning my violin onstage ..."

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine:

"I most frequently perform at A=440, 441, 442 and 415, with occasional forays into A=430 and even A=392 ... A=440 has always been my favorite because of its resonance .... trying A=460 is on my bucket list though ..."

VC Artist Violinist Benjamin Beilman:

"I'm not so picky – probably somewhere between A=441 and A=442 ... A=440 sometimes feels a little sleepy and anything over A=443 feels over caffeinated ..."

VC Artist Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu:

"This particular violin likes somewhere between A=441.5 and A=442 .... I find it gives the most natural ring and vibration ... but hey! Most of the time I don't get to choose ..."

Cellist Zuill Bailey:

"My preference is A=441 ... I find that harmonics ring low and I want to make sure that nothing sounds flat ... "

Violin Soloist Vadim Gluzman:

"I am blessed (or cursed?) with perfect pitch so it is a sensitive subject ... but I am happy between A=440 up to A=443/444 ... string players often tend to like higher tuning, but it often causes our intonation to go quite a bit "north" ..."

Violin Soloist Arnaud Sussmann:

"I like A=441 ... it's a nice middle ground between the very high "A" people tune to in Europe and the standard A=440 ... I feel instruments start sounding a bit under too much tension when the pitch rises above A=443 ..."

New England Conservatory Faculty Member, Violinist Paul Biss:

"I have learned long ago not to insist on one ... in general, though, I prefer not to go higher than A=442 ... I think the instrument rings better that way ..."

Curtis Institute Faculty Member, Violinist Ida Kavafian:

"I think we should be able to adjust to any pitch ... I can't stand when students make an excuse for the A not being where they expect - it's a poor excuse for bad intonation ... however, when I'm in charge, I ask for A=441 ..."

Veteran New England Conservatory Cello Pedagogue, Laurence Lesser:

"I don't have perfect pitch, but since that's kind of like "hearing" colours, I've gotten used to A=441 ... above and below just sounds different  .... A=441 is the colour I like ..."

VC Artist Violinist Paul Huang:

"A=442 or A=443 if possible ... for me it just rings better when the A is a higher frequency and it sounds more brilliant ...."

VC Artist Violinist Tessa Lark:

"Flexibility in this realm is important so I don't have a preference ... but my natural A frequency when I sing is A=432 .... the perfect pitch in me was relieved to find out that many of my favorite composers (Bach, Mozart, Debussy & Chopin) wrote their masterpieces using 432Hz tuning ..."

VC Artist Violinist Bella Hristova:

"I like A=441 ... I think the violin sounds really brilliant at this frequency ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist Kerson Leong:

"When I practice alone, I always lean towards a lower A pitch for no apparent reason ..."

VC Artist Violinist Fedor Rudin:

"I don't have one, I feel as comfortable with A=443 as with A=415 ... but the tuning does help create a different atmosphere and sound projection ...."

VC Artist Violinist Igor Pikayzen:

"I don't swear by a particular pitch frequency, and when you travel you obviously graciously accept the A that the orchestra tunes to .... but if I would have to choose I'd go with A=442 or A=443 - for me, it just sounds more in focus to my ear!"

VC Young Artist Violinist In Mo Yang:

"???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Mo Yang went: "???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Reminds me of a favorite movie quote:

"I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch."

I addressed this issue in my first post, but it was a link so folks may have not actually followed it. I'll cut and paste it here. The Gist is that the very best string players and many concert masters rarely (if ever) use A440. 

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with A440. You could look at A440 as being the center of a bullseye that is about 4 cents wide. Moreover, at this point in 2024, I see A441 as being as legit as 440 unless I'm tuning for a recording that requires A440 specifically. Again - PTG requires that pitch be set at between 439.75 and 440.25 to be considered "perfect" or 100%. 

I question the idea that clients hire us to tune the piano at A440. Clients have almost no understanding of what is involved with professional piano work. They hire us because they want their piano to sound and play more beautifully.

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

'What is your preferred tuning A-pitch frequency?"

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

Violin Virtuoso Itzhak Perlman:

"I like A=442 as it is slightly on the sharp side, but A=440 is fine also ... what's important is that everything is in tune ..."

British Cello Soloist Steven Isserlis:

"I don't mind, I go from A=430 up to A=443 ... just not down as far as A=415 as I'd find that distracting ..."

German Violin Soloist David Garrett: 

"Normally I go for A=442 ... I know in Berlin the orchestras are quite high at A=444 ... but A=442 I think is a good medium ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist James Ehnes:

"Anywhere between A=440 and A=442 is fine with me ... my violin is set up to work best at that range of tension, and that is what my ear is most used to ... below A=440 starts to sound and feel "soggy" to me, and above A=442 can seem shrill ..."

Korean-American Violin Soloist Sarah Chang:

"A=442 ... it keeps my violin sounding bright without over-stressing the wind and brass players ..."

Australian Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Ray Chen:

"A=442 ... it makes everything sound sweeter ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist William Hagen:

"I think A=442 is great ... I really don't like a flat A, but when the A is too sharp it can make everything sound really severe and tight ..."

Berlin Philharmonic Concertmaster, VC Artist Violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley:

"At the moment, I'm most comfortable with A=442 - a compromise between higher European A-frequencies, and lower American ones .... I feel if the A gets too high (A=444) it pinches the resonance of the instrument ..."

Milwaukee Symphony Concertmaster, Frank Almond:

"I like a little over A=441 ... the funny thing is that I've noticed most groups that tune to A=440 or A=441 end up playing a little over A=441 anyway ... in Europe it always seems like the sky's the limit…..."

Dallas Symphony Concertmaster, Alexander Kerr:

"A=441 ... it lends just enough brightness to the sound without losing the sensation of being able to dig into the string..."

Canadian Violinist, VC Artist Nikki Chooi:

"A=441 ... it's not too high, not too low - just right ..."

American Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Stefan Jackiw:

"I find that this changes with humidity ... during dry weather I prefer A=440 ... during humid weather I prefer A=442 or even higher ..."

VC Artist Cellist Kian Soltani:

"A=442 ... simply cause it's the best ..."

Time For Three Violinist, VC Artist Charles Yang:

"I'm currently on tour in Europe and the band tunes to A=442 - I like it! ... it makes my instrument sound brighter ..."

French Violinist Augustin Dumay:

"I prefer the A=440 which is used in England, as it seems to me musically balanced, and protective of an exaggerated tension for the instruments ..."

British Violin Soloist Nicola Benedetti:

"The UK A=440 is a little flat for my liking but I have to stay flexible, otherwise I'd be in trouble ... I don't have perfect pitch so the adjustment is less painful for me than it can be for some ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist Lara St. John:

"I find A=441.5 to be my perfect A - but I am pretty adjustable ... A=441.5 sounds really good on a violin, and it's kind of mid-Atlantic ..."

American Violin Soloist Anne Akiko Meyers:

"A=442 ... it's a happy place that's just higher than 441 but lower than 443 ..."

Russian-American Violin Soloist Philippe Quint:

"My preferred pitch is A=442 ... however I now frequently ask to meet with the Principal Oboe before the concert to get the orchestra's "Official A" ... so not to spend 5 minutes re-tuning my violin onstage ..."

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine:

"I most frequently perform at A=440, 441, 442 and 415, with occasional forays into A=430 and even A=392 ... A=440 has always been my favorite because of its resonance .... trying A=460 is on my bucket list though ..."

VC Artist Violinist Benjamin Beilman:

"I'm not so picky – probably somewhere between A=441 and A=442 ... A=440 sometimes feels a little sleepy and anything over A=443 feels over caffeinated ..."

VC Artist Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu:

"This particular violin likes somewhere between A=441.5 and A=442 .... I find it gives the most natural ring and vibration ... but hey! Most of the time I don't get to choose ..."

Cellist Zuill Bailey:

"My preference is A=441 ... I find that harmonics ring low and I want to make sure that nothing sounds flat ... "

Violin Soloist Vadim Gluzman:

"I am blessed (or cursed?) with perfect pitch so it is a sensitive subject ... but I am happy between A=440 up to A=443/444 ... string players often tend to like higher tuning, but it often causes our intonation to go quite a bit "north" ..."

Violin Soloist Arnaud Sussmann:

"I like A=441 ... it's a nice middle ground between the very high "A" people tune to in Europe and the standard A=440 ... I feel instruments start sounding a bit under too much tension when the pitch rises above A=443 ..."

New England Conservatory Faculty Member, Violinist Paul Biss:

"I have learned long ago not to insist on one ... in general, though, I prefer not to go higher than A=442 ... I think the instrument rings better that way ..."

Curtis Institute Faculty Member, Violinist Ida Kavafian:

"I think we should be able to adjust to any pitch ... I can't stand when students make an excuse for the A not being where they expect - it's a poor excuse for bad intonation ... however, when I'm in charge, I ask for A=441 ..."

Veteran New England Conservatory Cello Pedagogue, Laurence Lesser:

"I don't have perfect pitch, but since that's kind of like "hearing" colours, I've gotten used to A=441 ... above and below just sounds different  .... A=441 is the colour I like ..."

VC Artist Violinist Paul Huang:

"A=442 or A=443 if possible ... for me it just rings better when the A is a higher frequency and it sounds more brilliant ...."

VC Artist Violinist Tessa Lark:

"Flexibility in this realm is important so I don't have a preference ... but my natural A frequency when I sing is A=432 .... the perfect pitch in me was relieved to find out that many of my favorite composers (Bach, Mozart, Debussy & Chopin) wrote their masterpieces using 432Hz tuning ..."

VC Artist Violinist Bella Hristova:

"I like A=441 ... I think the violin sounds really brilliant at this frequency ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist Kerson Leong:

"When I practice alone, I always lean towards a lower A pitch for no apparent reason ..."

VC Artist Violinist Fedor Rudin:

"I don't have one, I feel as comfortable with A=443 as with A=415 ... but the tuning does help create a different atmosphere and sound projection ...."

VC Artist Violinist Igor Pikayzen:

"I don't swear by a particular pitch frequency, and when you travel you obviously graciously accept the A that the orchestra tunes to .... but if I would have to choose I'd go with A=442 or A=443 - for me, it just sounds more in focus to my ear!"

VC Young Artist Violinist In Mo Yang:

"???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

"I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch."

I addressed this issue in my first post, but it was a link so folks may have not actually followed it. I'll cut and paste it here. The Gist is that the very best string players and many concert masters rarely (if ever) use A440. 

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with A440. You could look at A440 as being the center of a bullseye that is about 4 cents wide. Moreover, at this point in 2024, I see A441 as being as legit as 440 unless I'm tuning for a recording that requires A440 specifically. Again - PTG requires that pitch be set at between 439.75 and 440.25 to be considered "perfect" or 100%. 

I question the idea that clients hire us to tune the piano at A440. Clients have almost no understanding of what is involved with professional piano work. They hire us because they want their piano to sound and play more beautifully.

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

'What is your preferred tuning A-pitch frequency?"

The Violin Channel recently caught up with 30+ of the world's top string players to find out …

Violin Virtuoso Itzhak Perlman:

"I like A=442 as it is slightly on the sharp side, but A=440 is fine also ... what's important is that everything is in tune ..."

British Cello Soloist Steven Isserlis:

"I don't mind, I go from A=430 up to A=443 ... just not down as far as A=415 as I'd find that distracting ..."

German Violin Soloist David Garrett: 

"Normally I go for A=442 ... I know in Berlin the orchestras are quite high at A=444 ... but A=442 I think is a good medium ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist James Ehnes:

"Anywhere between A=440 and A=442 is fine with me ... my violin is set up to work best at that range of tension, and that is what my ear is most used to ... below A=440 starts to sound and feel "soggy" to me, and above A=442 can seem shrill ..."

Korean-American Violin Soloist Sarah Chang:

"A=442 ... it keeps my violin sounding bright without over-stressing the wind and brass players ..."

Australian Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Ray Chen:

"A=442 ... it makes everything sound sweeter ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist William Hagen:

"I think A=442 is great ... I really don't like a flat A, but when the A is too sharp it can make everything sound really severe and tight ..."

Berlin Philharmonic Concertmaster, VC Artist Violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley:

"At the moment, I'm most comfortable with A=442 - a compromise between higher European A-frequencies, and lower American ones .... I feel if the A gets too high (A=444) it pinches the resonance of the instrument ..."

Milwaukee Symphony Concertmaster, Frank Almond:

"I like a little over A=441 ... the funny thing is that I've noticed most groups that tune to A=440 or A=441 end up playing a little over A=441 anyway ... in Europe it always seems like the sky's the limit…..."

Dallas Symphony Concertmaster, Alexander Kerr:

"A=441 ... it lends just enough brightness to the sound without losing the sensation of being able to dig into the string..."

Canadian Violinist, VC Artist Nikki Chooi:

"A=441 ... it's not too high, not too low - just right ..."

American Soloist, VC Artist Violinist Stefan Jackiw:

"I find that this changes with humidity ... during dry weather I prefer A=440 ... during humid weather I prefer A=442 or even higher ..."

VC Artist Cellist Kian Soltani:

"A=442 ... simply cause it's the best ..."

Time For Three Violinist, VC Artist Charles Yang:

"I'm currently on tour in Europe and the band tunes to A=442 - I like it! ... it makes my instrument sound brighter ..."

French Violinist Augustin Dumay:

"I prefer the A=440 which is used in England, as it seems to me musically balanced, and protective of an exaggerated tension for the instruments ..."

British Violin Soloist Nicola Benedetti:

"The UK A=440 is a little flat for my liking but I have to stay flexible, otherwise I'd be in trouble ... I don't have perfect pitch so the adjustment is less painful for me than it can be for some ..."

Canadian Violin Soloist Lara St. John:

"I find A=441.5 to be my perfect A - but I am pretty adjustable ... A=441.5 sounds really good on a violin, and it's kind of mid-Atlantic ..."

American Violin Soloist Anne Akiko Meyers:

"A=442 ... it's a happy place that's just higher than 441 but lower than 443 ..."

Russian-American Violin Soloist Philippe Quint:

"My preferred pitch is A=442 ... however I now frequently ask to meet with the Principal Oboe before the concert to get the orchestra's "Official A" ... so not to spend 5 minutes re-tuning my violin onstage ..."

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine:

"I most frequently perform at A=440, 441, 442 and 415, with occasional forays into A=430 and even A=392 ... A=440 has always been my favorite because of its resonance .... trying A=460 is on my bucket list though ..."

VC Artist Violinist Benjamin Beilman:

"I'm not so picky – probably somewhere between A=441 and A=442 ... A=440 sometimes feels a little sleepy and anything over A=443 feels over caffeinated ..."

VC Artist Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu:

"This particular violin likes somewhere between A=441.5 and A=442 .... I find it gives the most natural ring and vibration ... but hey! Most of the time I don't get to choose ..."

Cellist Zuill Bailey:

"My preference is A=441 ... I find that harmonics ring low and I want to make sure that nothing sounds flat ... "

Violin Soloist Vadim Gluzman:

"I am blessed (or cursed?) with perfect pitch so it is a sensitive subject ... but I am happy between A=440 up to A=443/444 ... string players often tend to like higher tuning, but it often causes our intonation to go quite a bit "north" ..."

Violin Soloist Arnaud Sussmann:

"I like A=441 ... it's a nice middle ground between the very high "A" people tune to in Europe and the standard A=440 ... I feel instruments start sounding a bit under too much tension when the pitch rises above A=443 ..."

New England Conservatory Faculty Member, Violinist Paul Biss:

"I have learned long ago not to insist on one ... in general, though, I prefer not to go higher than A=442 ... I think the instrument rings better that way ..."

Curtis Institute Faculty Member, Violinist Ida Kavafian:

"I think we should be able to adjust to any pitch ... I can't stand when students make an excuse for the A not being where they expect - it's a poor excuse for bad intonation ... however, when I'm in charge, I ask for A=441 ..."

Veteran New England Conservatory Cello Pedagogue, Laurence Lesser:

"I don't have perfect pitch, but since that's kind of like "hearing" colours, I've gotten used to A=441 ... above and below just sounds different  .... A=441 is the colour I like ..."

VC Artist Violinist Paul Huang:

"A=442 or A=443 if possible ... for me it just rings better when the A is a higher frequency and it sounds more brilliant ...."

VC Artist Violinist Tessa Lark:

"Flexibility in this realm is important so I don't have a preference ... but my natural A frequency when I sing is A=432 .... the perfect pitch in me was relieved to find out that many of my favorite composers (Bach, Mozart, Debussy & Chopin) wrote their masterpieces using 432Hz tuning ..."

VC Artist Violinist Bella Hristova:

"I like A=441 ... I think the violin sounds really brilliant at this frequency ..."

VC Young Artist Violinist Kerson Leong:

"When I practice alone, I always lean towards a lower A pitch for no apparent reason ..."

VC Artist Violinist Fedor Rudin:

"I don't have one, I feel as comfortable with A=443 as with A=415 ... but the tuning does help create a different atmosphere and sound projection ...."

VC Artist Violinist Igor Pikayzen:

"I don't swear by a particular pitch frequency, and when you travel you obviously graciously accept the A that the orchestra tunes to .... but if I would have to choose I'd go with A=442 or A=443 - for me, it just sounds more in focus to my ear!"

VC Young Artist Violinist In Mo Yang:

"???? ... no matter what your preferred A there are still many ways to play out of tune ..."

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Hi all,

There seems to actually be 3 topics in this thread:

1. Preference for 440 vs 441, 442, or 443 etc. That would seem to be a different discussion. 
2. Floating the pitch very small amounts in concert situations for stability.
3. Floating as a habit for in-home tunings, possibly to avoid having to pitch raise or lower.

In my first response, I was only addressing #3. I recently had a customer that told me, when I came to a piano tuned 20c low, "my last tuner always just tuned it where it was." Well, of course the piano eventually ended up 20 c low. That's what I would object to. 

Sure, if someone wants me to tune to 441, that's fine. No one ever does, though--not in my market. The ones that I refuse are the odd customers that want either 432 or 444 (I've had both) because they read something on the internet about those tunings synchronizing with their chakras or something.

For home customers, I simply always tune to 440. One reason is that, unlike in a university or other controlled setting, I really have no idea when that person will call me again. (yes, I send out cards but I prefer not to pre-schedule, which introduces other complexities for me.) I have a very stable base of yearly customers, but another group that might just wait for 2 years or more. I'd rather have these pianos as close to 440 as possible because if I were to, say, float them low, they could be much lower the next time, and that means more work and less stability. Case in point: yesterday, I had a customer with a piano I had last tuned in 2019, and it was about 10c low. Busy family, might not have it tuned for another 4 years. So I'm not going to leave it at 10c low.

Also, pianos and the environments they are kept in vary wildly. I keep a tuning record in the piano, and in some pianos, I can see that, no matter what, they've fallen 5-10 cents per year. I'm not going to float ones with that kind of record. Other pianos go up and down with the seasons. Some stay right on pitch.

So it seems to me that "floating the pitch" means different things to different tuners, and each situation is different.

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Let me address floating pitch in home situations.  I tune all home pianos to between A440 and A442.  If the pitch is within that 8¢ window, that's where I tune it.  If it is flat from 5¢-35¢, I pitch raise it to +3¢.  I do not charge for pitch raises (I no longer ever see a piano more than 30¢ flat).  I use CyberTuner and doing pitch raises are so quick and easy with CyberTuner, that tuning to proper pitch is part of my complete service.  I charge enough for my service calls, probably more than most of you charge for a pitch raise, that tuning at the proper pitch is included in my full service.

In addition let me address Ryan's minor pitch floating within a tuning.  I wrote an article on this for the PTG Journal10 years ago titled "Stability, Stability, Stability".  The 3 most important parts of tuning are stability, stability and stability.  Everything you do should be in service of that.  I am aware of the relative humidity when I am tuning.  Most of these micro adjustments pertains to the lowest 15 plain wire strings on the tenor bridge.  These strings are the most reactive to changes in humidity.  If the RH is unusually high I will take that into account and leave those 15 strings a little too sharp, if the RH is unusually low then I will leave these same 15 strings a little too flat.  Over time you learn exactly how much to fudge.  Stability means having the piano sound as good as it can for as long as it can.  Thinking this way should be part of your approach to tuning.

Hi all,

There seems to actually be 3 topics in this thread:

1. Preference for 440 vs 441, 442, or 443 etc. That would seem to be a different discussion. 
2. Floating the pitch very small amounts in concert situations for stability.
3. Floating as a habit for in-home tunings, possibly to avoid having to pitch raise or lower.

In my first response, I was only addressing #3. I recently had a customer that told me, when I came to a piano tuned 20c low, "my last tuner always just tuned it where it was." Well, of course the piano eventually ended up 20 c low. That's what I would object to. 

Sure, if someone wants me to tune to 441, that's fine. No one ever does, though--not in my market. The ones that I refuse are the odd customers that want either 432 or 444 (I've had both) because they read something on the internet about those tunings synchronizing with their chakras or something.

For home customers, I simply always tune to 440. One reason is that, unlike in a university or other controlled setting, I really have no idea when that person will call me again. (yes, I send out cards but I prefer not to pre-schedule, which introduces other complexities for me.) I have a very stable base of yearly customers, but another group that might just wait for 2 years or more. I'd rather have these pianos as close to 440 as possible because if I were to, say, float them low, they could be much lower the next time, and that means more work and less stability. Case in point: yesterday, I had a customer with a piano I had last tuned in 2019, and it was about 10c low. Busy family, might not have it tuned for another 4 years. So I'm not going to leave it at 10c low.

Also, pianos and the environments they are kept in vary wildly. I keep a tuning record in the piano, and in some pianos, I can see that, no matter what, they've fallen 5-10 cents per year. I'm not going to float ones with that kind of record. Other pianos go up and down with the seasons. Some stay right on pitch.

So it seems to me that "floating the pitch" means different things to different tuners, and each situation is different.

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Let me address floating pitch in home situations.  I tune all home pianos to between A440 and A442.  If the pitch is within that 8¢ window, that's where I tune it.  If it is flat from 5¢-35¢, I pitch raise it to +3¢.  I do not charge for pitch raises (I no longer ever see a piano more than 30¢ flat).  I use CyberTuner and doing pitch raises are so quick and easy with CyberTuner, that tuning to proper pitch is part of my complete service.  I charge enough for my service calls, probably more than most of you charge for a pitch raise, that tuning at the proper pitch is included in my full service.

In addition let me address Ryan's minor pitch floating within a tuning.  I wrote an article on this for the PTG Journal10 years ago titled "Stability, Stability, Stability".  The 3 most important parts of tuning are stability, stability and stability.  Everything you do should be in service of that.  I am aware of the relative humidity when I am tuning.  Most of these micro adjustments pertains to the lowest 15 plain wire strings on the tenor bridge.  These strings are the most reactive to changes in humidity.  If the RH is unusually high I will take that into account and leave those 15 strings a little too sharp, if the RH is unusually low then I will leave these same 15 strings a little too flat.  Over time you learn exactly how much to fudge.  Stability means having the piano sound as good as it can for as long as it can.  Thinking this way should be part of your approach to tuning.

Hi all,

There seems to actually be 3 topics in this thread:

1. Preference for 440 vs 441, 442, or 443 etc. That would seem to be a different discussion. 
2. Floating the pitch very small amounts in concert situations for stability.
3. Floating as a habit for in-home tunings, possibly to avoid having to pitch raise or lower.

In my first response, I was only addressing #3. I recently had a customer that told me, when I came to a piano tuned 20c low, "my last tuner always just tuned it where it was." Well, of course the piano eventually ended up 20 c low. That's what I would object to. 

Sure, if someone wants me to tune to 441, that's fine. No one ever does, though--not in my market. The ones that I refuse are the odd customers that want either 432 or 444 (I've had both) because they read something on the internet about those tunings synchronizing with their chakras or something.

For home customers, I simply always tune to 440. One reason is that, unlike in a university or other controlled setting, I really have no idea when that person will call me again. (yes, I send out cards but I prefer not to pre-schedule, which introduces other complexities for me.) I have a very stable base of yearly customers, but another group that might just wait for 2 years or more. I'd rather have these pianos as close to 440 as possible because if I were to, say, float them low, they could be much lower the next time, and that means more work and less stability. Case in point: yesterday, I had a customer with a piano I had last tuned in 2019, and it was about 10c low. Busy family, might not have it tuned for another 4 years. So I'm not going to leave it at 10c low.

Also, pianos and the environments they are kept in vary wildly. I keep a tuning record in the piano, and in some pianos, I can see that, no matter what, they've fallen 5-10 cents per year. I'm not going to float ones with that kind of record. Other pianos go up and down with the seasons. Some stay right on pitch.

So it seems to me that "floating the pitch" means different things to different tuners, and each situation is different.

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Let me address floating pitch in home situations.  I tune all home pianos to between A440 and A442.  If the pitch is within that 8¢ window, that's where I tune it.  If it is flat from 5¢-35¢, I pitch raise it to +3¢.  I do not charge for pitch raises (I no longer ever see a piano more than 30¢ flat).  I use CyberTuner and doing pitch raises are so quick and easy with CyberTuner, that tuning to proper pitch is part of my complete service.  I charge enough for my service calls, probably more than most of you charge for a pitch raise, that tuning at the proper pitch is included in my full service.

In addition let me address Ryan's minor pitch floating within a tuning.  I wrote an article on this for the PTG Journal10 years ago titled "Stability, Stability, Stability".  The 3 most important parts of tuning are stability, stability and stability.  Everything you do should be in service of that.  I am aware of the relative humidity when I am tuning.  Most of these micro adjustments pertains to the lowest 15 plain wire strings on the tenor bridge.  These strings are the most reactive to changes in humidity.  If the RH is unusually high I will take that into account and leave those 15 strings a little too sharp, if the RH is unusually low then I will leave these same 15 strings a little too flat.  Over time you learn exactly how much to fudge.  Stability means having the piano sound as good as it can for as long as it can.  Thinking this way should be part of your approach to tuning.

Hi all,

There seems to actually be 3 topics in this thread:

1. Preference for 440 vs 441, 442, or 443 etc. That would seem to be a different discussion. 
2. Floating the pitch very small amounts in concert situations for stability.
3. Floating as a habit for in-home tunings, possibly to avoid having to pitch raise or lower.

In my first response, I was only addressing #3. I recently had a customer that told me, when I came to a piano tuned 20c low, "my last tuner always just tuned it where it was." Well, of course the piano eventually ended up 20 c low. That's what I would object to. 

Sure, if someone wants me to tune to 441, that's fine. No one ever does, though--not in my market. The ones that I refuse are the odd customers that want either 432 or 444 (I've had both) because they read something on the internet about those tunings synchronizing with their chakras or something.

For home customers, I simply always tune to 440. One reason is that, unlike in a university or other controlled setting, I really have no idea when that person will call me again. (yes, I send out cards but I prefer not to pre-schedule, which introduces other complexities for me.) I have a very stable base of yearly customers, but another group that might just wait for 2 years or more. I'd rather have these pianos as close to 440 as possible because if I were to, say, float them low, they could be much lower the next time, and that means more work and less stability. Case in point: yesterday, I had a customer with a piano I had last tuned in 2019, and it was about 10c low. Busy family, might not have it tuned for another 4 years. So I'm not going to leave it at 10c low.

Also, pianos and the environments they are kept in vary wildly. I keep a tuning record in the piano, and in some pianos, I can see that, no matter what, they've fallen 5-10 cents per year. I'm not going to float ones with that kind of record. Other pianos go up and down with the seasons. Some stay right on pitch.

So it seems to me that "floating the pitch" means different things to different tuners, and each situation is different.

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Wim, say you come in one morning to an often tuned instrument and the bass is +2 cents over 440, the 5th/6th octaves about the same. Are you going to push it down 2 cents or trim up the middle? I agree, I weigh the bass and G5-G6 more when determining where the overall pitch of the tuning is. The longer bare wires in the middle change the most to room temp. 

Let me address floating pitch in home situations.  I tune all home pianos to between A440 and A442.  If the pitch is within that 8¢ window, that's where I tune it.  If it is flat from 5¢-35¢, I pitch raise it to +3¢.  I do not charge for pitch raises (I no longer ever see a piano more than 30¢ flat).  I use CyberTuner and doing pitch raises are so quick and easy with CyberTuner, that tuning to proper pitch is part of my complete service.  I charge enough for my service calls, probably more than most of you charge for a pitch raise, that tuning at the proper pitch is included in my full service.

In addition let me address Ryan's minor pitch floating within a tuning.  I wrote an article on this for the PTG Journal10 years ago titled "Stability, Stability, Stability".  The 3 most important parts of tuning are stability, stability and stability.  Everything you do should be in service of that.  I am aware of the relative humidity when I am tuning.  Most of these micro adjustments pertains to the lowest 15 plain wire strings on the tenor bridge.  These strings are the most reactive to changes in humidity.  If the RH is unusually high I will take that into account and leave those 15 strings a little too sharp, if the RH is unusually low then I will leave these same 15 strings a little too flat.  Over time you learn exactly how much to fudge.  Stability means having the piano sound as good as it can for as long as it can.  Thinking this way should be part of your approach to tuning.

Hi all,

There seems to actually be 3 topics in this thread:

1. Preference for 440 vs 441, 442, or 443 etc. That would seem to be a different discussion. 
2. Floating the pitch very small amounts in concert situations for stability.
3. Floating as a habit for in-home tunings, possibly to avoid having to pitch raise or lower.

In my first response, I was only addressing #3. I recently had a customer that told me, when I came to a piano tuned 20c low, "my last tuner always just tuned it where it was." Well, of course the piano eventually ended up 20 c low. That's what I would object to. 

Sure, if someone wants me to tune to 441, that's fine. No one ever does, though--not in my market. The ones that I refuse are the odd customers that want either 432 or 444 (I've had both) because they read something on the internet about those tunings synchronizing with their chakras or something.

For home customers, I simply always tune to 440. One reason is that, unlike in a university or other controlled setting, I really have no idea when that person will call me again. (yes, I send out cards but I prefer not to pre-schedule, which introduces other complexities for me.) I have a very stable base of yearly customers, but another group that might just wait for 2 years or more. I'd rather have these pianos as close to 440 as possible because if I were to, say, float them low, they could be much lower the next time, and that means more work and less stability. Case in point: yesterday, I had a customer with a piano I had last tuned in 2019, and it was about 10c low. Busy family, might not have it tuned for another 4 years. So I'm not going to leave it at 10c low.

Also, pianos and the environments they are kept in vary wildly. I keep a tuning record in the piano, and in some pianos, I can see that, no matter what, they've fallen 5-10 cents per year. I'm not going to float ones with that kind of record. Other pianos go up and down with the seasons. Some stay right on pitch.

So it seems to me that "floating the pitch" means different things to different tuners, and each situation is different.

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Wim, say you come in one morning to an often tuned instrument and the bass is +2 cents over 440, the 5th/6th octaves about the same. Are you going to push it down 2 cents or trim up the middle? I agree, I weigh the bass and G5-G6 more when determining where the overall pitch of the tuning is. The longer bare wires in the middle change the most to room temp. 

Let me address floating pitch in home situations.  I tune all home pianos to between A440 and A442.  If the pitch is within that 8¢ window, that's where I tune it.  If it is flat from 5¢-35¢, I pitch raise it to +3¢.  I do not charge for pitch raises (I no longer ever see a piano more than 30¢ flat).  I use CyberTuner and doing pitch raises are so quick and easy with CyberTuner, that tuning to proper pitch is part of my complete service.  I charge enough for my service calls, probably more than most of you charge for a pitch raise, that tuning at the proper pitch is included in my full service.

In addition let me address Ryan's minor pitch floating within a tuning.  I wrote an article on this for the PTG Journal10 years ago titled "Stability, Stability, Stability".  The 3 most important parts of tuning are stability, stability and stability.  Everything you do should be in service of that.  I am aware of the relative humidity when I am tuning.  Most of these micro adjustments pertains to the lowest 15 plain wire strings on the tenor bridge.  These strings are the most reactive to changes in humidity.  If the RH is unusually high I will take that into account and leave those 15 strings a little too sharp, if the RH is unusually low then I will leave these same 15 strings a little too flat.  Over time you learn exactly how much to fudge.  Stability means having the piano sound as good as it can for as long as it can.  Thinking this way should be part of your approach to tuning.

Hi all,

There seems to actually be 3 topics in this thread:

1. Preference for 440 vs 441, 442, or 443 etc. That would seem to be a different discussion. 
2. Floating the pitch very small amounts in concert situations for stability.
3. Floating as a habit for in-home tunings, possibly to avoid having to pitch raise or lower.

In my first response, I was only addressing #3. I recently had a customer that told me, when I came to a piano tuned 20c low, "my last tuner always just tuned it where it was." Well, of course the piano eventually ended up 20 c low. That's what I would object to. 

Sure, if someone wants me to tune to 441, that's fine. No one ever does, though--not in my market. The ones that I refuse are the odd customers that want either 432 or 444 (I've had both) because they read something on the internet about those tunings synchronizing with their chakras or something.

For home customers, I simply always tune to 440. One reason is that, unlike in a university or other controlled setting, I really have no idea when that person will call me again. (yes, I send out cards but I prefer not to pre-schedule, which introduces other complexities for me.) I have a very stable base of yearly customers, but another group that might just wait for 2 years or more. I'd rather have these pianos as close to 440 as possible because if I were to, say, float them low, they could be much lower the next time, and that means more work and less stability. Case in point: yesterday, I had a customer with a piano I had last tuned in 2019, and it was about 10c low. Busy family, might not have it tuned for another 4 years. So I'm not going to leave it at 10c low.

Also, pianos and the environments they are kept in vary wildly. I keep a tuning record in the piano, and in some pianos, I can see that, no matter what, they've fallen 5-10 cents per year. I'm not going to float ones with that kind of record. Other pianos go up and down with the seasons. Some stay right on pitch.

So it seems to me that "floating the pitch" means different things to different tuners, and each situation is different.

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 5/4/2024 4:35:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/4/2024 4:19:00 PM
From: Steven Rosenthal
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Wim, say you come in one morning to an often tuned instrument and the bass is +2 cents over 440, the 5th/6th octaves about the same. Are you going to push it down 2 cents or trim up the middle? I agree, I weigh the bass and G5-G6 more when determining where the overall pitch of the tuning is. The longer bare wires in the middle change the most to room temp. 

------------------------------
Steven Rosenthal RPT
Honolulu HI
(808) 521-7129

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2024 15:37
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/4/2024 3:01:00 PM
From: Anthony Willey
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/4/2024 2:25:00 PM
From: Carl Lieberman
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Let me address floating pitch in home situations.  I tune all home pianos to between A440 and A442.  If the pitch is within that 8¢ window, that's where I tune it.  If it is flat from 5¢-35¢, I pitch raise it to +3¢.  I do not charge for pitch raises (I no longer ever see a piano more than 30¢ flat).  I use CyberTuner and doing pitch raises are so quick and easy with CyberTuner, that tuning to proper pitch is part of my complete service.  I charge enough for my service calls, probably more than most of you charge for a pitch raise, that tuning at the proper pitch is included in my full service.

In addition let me address Ryan's minor pitch floating within a tuning.  I wrote an article on this for the PTG Journal10 years ago titled "Stability, Stability, Stability".  The 3 most important parts of tuning are stability, stability and stability.  Everything you do should be in service of that.  I am aware of the relative humidity when I am tuning.  Most of these micro adjustments pertains to the lowest 15 plain wire strings on the tenor bridge.  These strings are the most reactive to changes in humidity.  If the RH is unusually high I will take that into account and leave those 15 strings a little too sharp, if the RH is unusually low then I will leave these same 15 strings a little too flat.  Over time you learn exactly how much to fudge.  Stability means having the piano sound as good as it can for as long as it can.  Thinking this way should be part of your approach to tuning.

------------------------------
Carl Lieberman RPT
RPT
Venice CA
(310) 392-2771

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2024 12:24
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

Hi all,

There seems to actually be 3 topics in this thread:

1. Preference for 440 vs 441, 442, or 443 etc. That would seem to be a different discussion. 
2. Floating the pitch very small amounts in concert situations for stability.
3. Floating as a habit for in-home tunings, possibly to avoid having to pitch raise or lower.

In my first response, I was only addressing #3. I recently had a customer that told me, when I came to a piano tuned 20c low, "my last tuner always just tuned it where it was." Well, of course the piano eventually ended up 20 c low. That's what I would object to. 

Sure, if someone wants me to tune to 441, that's fine. No one ever does, though--not in my market. The ones that I refuse are the odd customers that want either 432 or 444 (I've had both) because they read something on the internet about those tunings synchronizing with their chakras or something.

For home customers, I simply always tune to 440. One reason is that, unlike in a university or other controlled setting, I really have no idea when that person will call me again. (yes, I send out cards but I prefer not to pre-schedule, which introduces other complexities for me.) I have a very stable base of yearly customers, but another group that might just wait for 2 years or more. I'd rather have these pianos as close to 440 as possible because if I were to, say, float them low, they could be much lower the next time, and that means more work and less stability. Case in point: yesterday, I had a customer with a piano I had last tuned in 2019, and it was about 10c low. Busy family, might not have it tuned for another 4 years. So I'm not going to leave it at 10c low.

Also, pianos and the environments they are kept in vary wildly. I keep a tuning record in the piano, and in some pianos, I can see that, no matter what, they've fallen 5-10 cents per year. I'm not going to float ones with that kind of record. Other pianos go up and down with the seasons. Some stay right on pitch.

So it seems to me that "floating the pitch" means different things to different tuners, and each situation is different.

------------------------------
Scott Cole, RPT
rvpianotuner.com
Talent, OR
(541-601-9033

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2024 10:57
From: Carl Lieberman
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/3/2024 3:14:00 PM
From: David Brown
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

------------------------------
David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Very good thoughts Wim. I agree on all your points. 

I don't float pitch for one simple reason. If the piano isn't in a stable environment, how am I supposed to know that if I'm the one constantly changing the pitch at which I tune to? Is it -10¢ because of the room, or because I put it there? I've had other (very good) technicians tell me that this piano or that piano isn't stable. But I find that when it's tune to a consistent 440, things magically start to stabilize more often than not. 

My only exception is where certain orchestras need a 442 tuning. I'm ok doing that, but it will cost them extra if the piano's not already at 442. But that's it. Like Wim said, if they're going to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, they can find someone else. I actually like working for discerning clients, but there's a difference between being discerning and being difficult. 

------------------------------
Benjamin Sanchez, RPT
Piano Technician / Artisan
(256) 947-9999
www.professional-piano-services.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-02-2024 13:11
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 10:58:00 AM
From: Ryan Sowers
Subject: Floating Confessions

I was happy to see the discussion around the error in using F3 to set pitch morph into a discussion regarding floating pitch. It is a subject near and dear to my heart.

The way I think about it now is this: I not only float pitch, I float the entire tuning. 

When I first began my tuning career, I had very rigid ideas about my tuning. I was strictly aural for at least the first decade. I was dedicated to a "textbook" PTG test type of tuning. As the years progressed, however, I came across certain clients who seemed to want something different. One of the most obvious cases was tuning for the late jazz artist Jessica Williams. She really emphasized that she wanted a lot of stretch in the tuning and thought my first "textbook" tuning sounded sharp in the bass and flat in the treble. Graciously trying to accommodate her led to me prepping the pianos for two of her albums. She was challenging but also rewarding to work for. And she did indeed like a LOT of stretch, especially on the ends. 

One summer left the octave spread particularly wide, so I thought I'd find out what the limits of stretch were that she could tolerate. I left the piano with octaves that had a clear beat and very busy thirds. It took her less than a day let me know that I had gone too far!

I had another client, a physicist with a 7' Schimmel who requested 2:1 octaves throughout the entire compass. That also proved to be fairly challenging and also educational. 

The fact that all the ETD's have various stretch settings to choose from, shows that there is not a specific amount of stretch that is universally agreed on as perfect. In my estimation, this is one of the great ironies of the ETD: It is extremely precise at choosing high resolution pitch targets within a system that is somewhat squishy and flexible. It can be akin to adjusting pixels in a 1200 dpi image that will be shown on a 600 dpi screen.

This squish factor can certainly be used to a technician's advantage if you are the type who attempts to serve your client's best interests by making the pianos as nice as you can for the time that you have. This is opposed to what Darrel Fandrich used to describe as the "tune and run" tuner. In other words, looking for opportunities to shave time off tuning to address touch and tone issues. And it is rare to find a piano without touch and tone issues. 

Experience over time helps one learn what the limits are. Like everything in piano work, you have to overdo and underdo things in order to discover where the sweet spots lie. Discovering how far you can reasonably and professionally float the pitch and the stretch the octaves is one of the most powerful tools a technician can develop. 

------------------------------
Ryan Sowers RPT
Olympia WA
(360) 480-5648
------------------------------

Except for pianos with extenuating circumstances, such as age or rust or such, I follow Wim's approach and tune to A440. No floating. As has been noted, the lowest and highest octaves are often already at, or very close to, A440-based proper pitch, and if you want the overall sound to sparkle I don't feel there is a choice. Just listen to the beating of the fifths and twelfths in the upper several octaves when you are done tuning (in standard ET) versus the purity of octaves (like simultaneous playing of C3+C4+C6+C7). I go for that extra sparkle/resonance, and I explain this to (some of) my customers. Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2024 16:56
From: Anthony Willey
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/4/2024 4:35:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/4/2024 4:19:00 PM
From: Steven Rosenthal
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Wim, say you come in one morning to an often tuned instrument and the bass is +2 cents over 440, the 5th/6th octaves about the same. Are you going to push it down 2 cents or trim up the middle? I agree, I weigh the bass and G5-G6 more when determining where the overall pitch of the tuning is. The longer bare wires in the middle change the most to room temp. 

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Steven Rosenthal RPT
Honolulu HI
(808) 521-7129

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2024 15:37
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/4/2024 3:01:00 PM
From: Anthony Willey
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/4/2024 2:25:00 PM
From: Carl Lieberman
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Let me address floating pitch in home situations.  I tune all home pianos to between A440 and A442.  If the pitch is within that 8¢ window, that's where I tune it.  If it is flat from 5¢-35¢, I pitch raise it to +3¢.  I do not charge for pitch raises (I no longer ever see a piano more than 30¢ flat).  I use CyberTuner and doing pitch raises are so quick and easy with CyberTuner, that tuning to proper pitch is part of my complete service.  I charge enough for my service calls, probably more than most of you charge for a pitch raise, that tuning at the proper pitch is included in my full service.

In addition let me address Ryan's minor pitch floating within a tuning.  I wrote an article on this for the PTG Journal10 years ago titled "Stability, Stability, Stability".  The 3 most important parts of tuning are stability, stability and stability.  Everything you do should be in service of that.  I am aware of the relative humidity when I am tuning.  Most of these micro adjustments pertains to the lowest 15 plain wire strings on the tenor bridge.  These strings are the most reactive to changes in humidity.  If the RH is unusually high I will take that into account and leave those 15 strings a little too sharp, if the RH is unusually low then I will leave these same 15 strings a little too flat.  Over time you learn exactly how much to fudge.  Stability means having the piano sound as good as it can for as long as it can.  Thinking this way should be part of your approach to tuning.

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Carl Lieberman RPT
RPT
Venice CA
(310) 392-2771

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2024 12:24
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

Hi all,

There seems to actually be 3 topics in this thread:

1. Preference for 440 vs 441, 442, or 443 etc. That would seem to be a different discussion. 
2. Floating the pitch very small amounts in concert situations for stability.
3. Floating as a habit for in-home tunings, possibly to avoid having to pitch raise or lower.

In my first response, I was only addressing #3. I recently had a customer that told me, when I came to a piano tuned 20c low, "my last tuner always just tuned it where it was." Well, of course the piano eventually ended up 20 c low. That's what I would object to. 

Sure, if someone wants me to tune to 441, that's fine. No one ever does, though--not in my market. The ones that I refuse are the odd customers that want either 432 or 444 (I've had both) because they read something on the internet about those tunings synchronizing with their chakras or something.

For home customers, I simply always tune to 440. One reason is that, unlike in a university or other controlled setting, I really have no idea when that person will call me again. (yes, I send out cards but I prefer not to pre-schedule, which introduces other complexities for me.) I have a very stable base of yearly customers, but another group that might just wait for 2 years or more. I'd rather have these pianos as close to 440 as possible because if I were to, say, float them low, they could be much lower the next time, and that means more work and less stability. Case in point: yesterday, I had a customer with a piano I had last tuned in 2019, and it was about 10c low. Busy family, might not have it tuned for another 4 years. So I'm not going to leave it at 10c low.

Also, pianos and the environments they are kept in vary wildly. I keep a tuning record in the piano, and in some pianos, I can see that, no matter what, they've fallen 5-10 cents per year. I'm not going to float ones with that kind of record. Other pianos go up and down with the seasons. Some stay right on pitch.

So it seems to me that "floating the pitch" means different things to different tuners, and each situation is different.

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Scott Cole, RPT
rvpianotuner.com
Talent, OR
(541-601-9033

Original Message:
Sent: 05-04-2024 10:57
From: Carl Lieberman
Subject: Floating Confessions

Original Message:
Sent: 5/3/2024 3:14:00 PM
From: David Brown
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions

Hi Scott and all-

Thank you for all this, very informative.

I'm not sure if anyone is talking about leaving pianos $.10 flat as a matter of convenience or to cut corners. This is a different thing in my world. I just completed a four night festival incorporating three pianos and much percussion equipment. One of the pieces performed was Boulez's Sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and percussion-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZnm0uDAKSY&t=50s

you will find it begins about 1:05.

For three weeks I had been gathering pitch on these three pianos through steam shutdowns, 70 recitals, prepared piano and a variety of other uses. 441 is the preferred pitch around here, so that was my reference for these three pianos. Once performances began things began to move. It would not be wise of me to chase pitch on these three pianos simply to hew to a standard. Stability is the most important thing in this environment so as things began to move, I would pay attention to pitch across the piano, but mostly pay attention to unisons. By the time the four night festival was over, there was no more than 2 1/2 cents variation between any of the three pianos. Not meaning five cents total, none of them varied more than 2 1/2 cents from each other. This was a well acceptable range for me and really not something that anyone even noticed. It only adds a bit more thickness to the sound, but doesn't sound out of tune. I know this is a very specific situation, but it speaks to how one person handles the movement of pitch in a concert hall with real usages and changes.

Best to all-

DB

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David C. Brown RPT
Garland TX
tunermandb88.com

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2024 10:09
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Floating Confessions

I don't float the pitch for a variety of reasons. First, I'm hired to tune the piano, and 440 is the standard pitch. One can argue that the typical customer can't tell the difference, but that opens the door to other kinds of corner cutting, such as ignoring the top and bottom notes: "Why bother? She'll never know, and anyway she said she just play hymns at the holidays."

If I get to a new customer and the piano is 10c flat, leaving it there means I'm making assumptions about many things, such as the stability of the customer's home, and the structure/stability of the piano. Sure, maybe that low pitch will bounce up with the next season, but how can I be sure? Right now in Oregon the weather is cool and rainy. But there are years where the spring is very hot and dry-or it goes back and forth dramatically.

That leads to other sticky questions: what exactly quantifies as a raise? Everyone has different opinions. For some, 3 cents low, for others, 10 cents. Who is to say?

Another issue I have with floating the pitch is the simple fact that pitch doesn't rise or fall evenly across the range. Typically, the bass changes the least and the high treble changes the most. Often, I'll come to a piano with the bass right in tune but the middle a few cents flat. So what am I floating-the bass, middle, or treble? Something will have to change.


Original Message:
Sent: 5/2/2024 3:19:00 PM
From: Benjamin Sanchez
Subject: RE: Floating Confessions