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Writer's pictureFrancesco

Piano Tuning Problems in the Upper Register

Updated: May 14, 2023

My customer Kathy M. from London, Fulham asks me:
"Can you explain more about this tuning on the treble section? It doesn't really help the sound quality! If so, can you solve the problem?" Answer: The original elements of any fine tuning fall into two categories:
1) The piano and its design, scaling, and fabrication; and 2) the tuner with temperament, octaves, and unison.
The piano whose design and/or redesign has a profound effect on the tuner’s realization ability is best discussed. The foundation of a good tuning is the best possible temperament. Because of scaling inequalities and human error, the degree of tuning accuracy tends to drop off toward the two extremes. A minor error at the beginning usually becomes a major one at the end - hence the great stress on super-fine temperament. It has been my observation that the problem of the majority of tuners is consistency - the ability to invariably duplicate octave tuning from octave to octave throughout the scale, especially in the extremes.

The major problem does not appear to be the ability to tune an octave, but rather in the proper use of tests and checks. Once one realizes it is impossible to tune precisely expanded octaves without the use of tests and checks, it then becomes a matter of choosing which tests to use and developing a work procedure to use them. There are also tuners who use too many tests, with no consequent improvement but a severe loss of time and a large expenditure of energy. We must each find the balance between investment and result.

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