Between the Liner Notes: The Tuning Wars

As a follow up to my recent book review of Stuart Isacoff's Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization, I'd like to share a podcast from the folks over at Between the Liner Notes. The episode is called “The Tuning Wars.” In the episode, the host, Matthew Billy, interviews Stuart Isacoff who elaborates on various aspects of the book.

Billy begins with the effect that Temperatment had on the public immediately following publication. People across the world lashed out at Isacoff, attacking him via blog posts, tweets, and Amazon reviews. One opponent may have even gone as far as comparing Isacoff's language to that of the Third Reich. To many, the issues discussed in Temperament are far from resolved and these people took Isacoff's claims as an attack on their beliefs.

The most interesting part of the podcast is when a portion of a Bach composition is played with several different tunings and in different keys: first with Pythagorean tuning and in a key that the piece was not intended to be played in, second with Pythagorean tuning and in the key that the piece was intended for, and finally in Equal Temperament.. Here, the listener can actually hear what Isacoff's entire book is dedicated to describing – the “wolf” intervals, the beautiful harmonies, and the compromise between the two. In addition, Billy describes the origin of the word “temperament” and its relation to the system of medicine known as “humorism” common to ancient Greek and Roman societies.

The Catholic Church was fiercely loyal to the Pythagorean tunings. The Church believed that the “godly” whole-number ratios that formed consonant musical intervals were a gift from Christ himself and were not to be tampered with. At one point, there was even a “Battle of the Organs” in which two leading organ-builders with differing opinions on temperament competed for their instruments to be permanently installed in London's Temple Church. Calling it a “battle” is only a slight overstatement, as one side went so far as to sabotage the other's organ the night before the contest.

Many famous names were involved in the battle of Equal Temperament. Galileo's father, Vincenzo Galilei, had a long and bitter dispute about the topic with his teacher Gioseffo Zarlino which often devolved into one attacking the other's character. Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler respectively claimed that the intervals of western music were proportional to the distance between colors in the spectrum of light and between planets in the solar system. Kepler went as far as to attribute male qualities to certain intervals and female qualities to others.

Between the Liner Notes does a fantastic job of expanding on some of the most interesting points from Temperament. I highly recommend listening to the podcast in full and am looking forward to their next episode this coming Monday.

Listen to the full podcast here:

http://www.betweenthelinernotes.com/episodes-1/2015/9/1/02-the-tuning-wars

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Cleaning Out an Upright

If you own an old upright piano, every few years, you ought to open up the base of the piano and take a look. Often times you will find rodent nests, broken pieces of the piano action, decades worth of dust and old pencils, or anything else you can imagine. This process only takes a few minutes and can give great insight about any ailments that may be affecting your piano.

I was recently called out to diagnose an old spinet that had survived Hurricane Katrina. The water had risen a few inches above the floor of the house and the water line could still be clearly seen at the lower end of the cast iron plate inside the piano. The reason I was called in was because, in addition to the piano being out of tune, many of the keys were either sticking or just moving very roughly. The first thing I did when arriving at the owner's home was to remove the lower panel of the piano (looking for a clue as to the piano's history). I saw the water line on the plate, but I also saw what looked like small piles of cat food along the bottom board inside of the piano. To me, this immediately implied a past or present rodent infestation. At some point, these critters had made this piano their home, found an open bag of cat food, and had stashed some of it for later. This definitely gave me an inkling as to what was going on with the keyboard. There is usually large enough gaps in the keyframe under the keys for mice to squeeze through and move around underneath the keyboard. However, this inkling didn't fully prepare me for what was to come.

After my quick check inside the lower cavity of the piano, I decided to pull a few keys out of the piano to see if there was anything underneath that could be jamming them, as well as looking at the condition of the bushings inside the keys that usually allow it to move smoothly up and down. After removing the top panel and fallboard, I lifted a few keys off the keyframe. What I found was that during the storm the mice that had been storing their food in the bottom of the piano needed to look for higher ground and, finding the cavity underneath the keys, had completely packed it with partially chewed cat food. The entire length of the keyframe had served as their emergency food storage. The food was so tightly packed and stuck together that it had to be chiseled out with a spoon and screwdriver.

The piano's owner and I spent a little over an hour removing all of the keys (and numbering them to ensure they were replaced in the proper order), scraping, scooping, brushing, and vacuuming all of the cat food out of the keybed cavities, and replacing the keys. Once the keys were back in, I was able to play all the way up and down the keyboard with only two keys showing any signs of sluggishness. These were quickly remedied by slightly easing (compressing) the balance rail bushings inside the offending keys.

This piano provides a great lesson about being vigilant about maintaning your piano. Open up the lid and the bottom panel every once in a while and take a look inside. If you see broken wooden parts, missing screws, or piles of small debris formed by rodents, you should take action quickly to prevent any small problems from becoming a serious issue that will prevent your piano from having to undergo expensive repairs. If you find that there are rodents moving in and out of your piano, be careful when cleaning up the mess they leave behind. Rodent feces can contain harmful viruses, so you should wear a dust mask and gloves. If you think they have caused damage to your piano, call your local piano technician to perform repairs and advise you on how to prevent similar damage in the future.

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How to Use a Wire Brake

Piano wire tends to be very springy and hard to control.  New piano wire comes in long lengths that are wrapped into tight coils.  Piano wire manufacturers package these coils in a few different ways: canisters, sheet metal brackets, zip ties, and wire brakes.  Each method has its advantages and disadvantages.  I definitely prefer to use wire brakes, as they offer the most secure hold on the wire as well as the most control when unwinding a length of wire.

When these wire brakes come in from Schaff, the center bolt is usually overtightened to keep the wire from potentially unwinding during shipping.  The first thing I do is loosen the bolt a little bit until the arm can rotate around the coil with some friction.  This is done by holding the thumbscrew with one hand and turning the wing-nut on the other side just a bit with the other hand.  Sometimes the wing-nut is so tight that a pliers is needed to turn it.

When working with piano wire, I wear some thin cotton gloves to keep the oils from my fingers off of the wire.  These oils will cause the bare steel wire to rust very quickly.

To use the wire brake, hold the arm of the brake in between the thumb and index finger of one hand.  Make sure you are not hanging on to the round part of the brake. Grab the end of the wire with a pliers and pull a length of wire out of the brake.  The round part of the brake will spin as the wire unwinds.

Once I have pulled as much wire as I need, I use the pliers to squeeze the wire against the bend at the tip of the arm.  This causes a tight bend in the wire that will catch in the small hole in the arm and keep the wire from unwinding.

The wire brake can now be put away until the next time it is needed.

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Review of Stuart Isacoff's "Temperament"

All of the piano repair books that I have read have included a short section on the development of equal temperament and it's predecessors, but none of them really dig deeply into the subject. These books did their job of piquing my interest in the topic. For those not familiar, equal temperament is a system of tuning for stringed instruments in which every note within the octave is equally spaced. Basically, this allows a song to be transposed into any key and still sound musically pleasing. In non-equal temperaments there exist so-called “wolf” intervals. Aptly named, these intervals produce sounds that resemble the howling of a wolf and thus had to be avoided by musicians and composers at all costs. So, how was equal temperament developed and why was it so difficult to achieve?

Isacoff's “Temperament” gives an in-depth history of the development of piano tunings and temperaments starting with Pythagoras's perfect fifths in 6th century BC, moving through Da Vinci, mean-tone temperament, Galileo, Zarlino, and Rameau, and finishing with contemporary minimalists such as Michael Harrison and Philip Glass. It also describes the many attempts to circumvent the problems presented by unequal temperament by adding anywhere from five to twenty extra keys to the standard twelve-note octave.

I have mixed feelings about this book. “Temperament” is advertised as an “engaging and accessible account” which to me means that it was not written with the professional piano tuner in mind. This is great news for people with a passing interest in how western music came to sound the way it does. However for those with a more technical interest, it is probably not the book you are looking for. This book does not really get into the math behind the development of equal temperament. The closest it gets to the technical aspect is describing the basic ratios that make a major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, etc. The book seems to be written for history buffs rather than people who really want to understand the mathematical qualities of different temperaments and how they were developed. Also, there is a lot of filler in this book that doesn't really seem relevant to the topic. There are sections of the book where the author will go on a tangent for many pages about the personal lives of 16th century royalty.

Some knowledge of basic music theory will help in understanding the content of the book. For people who are familiar with the word “temperament” and its meaning, but don't have the desire to dig into the hundreds of varieties of just-intonation and unequal temperament, "Temperament" is a thorough account and a fantastic read.

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Choosing a Tuning Hammer

One of the biggest choices a person must make after deciding to tune a piano is which tuning hammer to use.  There are tons of choices out there between different materials, lengths, head angles, and tip lengths.  Most quality tuning hammers are made of three separate parts: the lever, the head, and the tip.  Many low quality hammers (and some high quality hammers) are only comprised of two or even a single piece.  Some levers are sold with a head and tip included, while others are not.

Whatever you do, DO NOT DO THIS. According to the original poster, this setup "works pretty well." This person has obviously never used a real tuning hammer. Not only will it be nearly impossible to precisely adjust a tuning pin this way, it will also likely damage the tuning pins.

Materials

There are four different materials that are commonly used for tuning levers: steel, carbon fiber, aluminum, and titanium, with the first two being by far the most popular.  Wood is often used as well, but only to create a comfortable handle, never as a structural element.

steel

Steel tuning levers come in all shapes, sizes, and prices.  Steel is stiffer than titanium but more flexible than aluminum or carbon fiber.  Stiffness is a very desirable quality as a stiffer lever will flex less and give better feedback about whether or not the tuning pin is actually turning.  Look for levers made of tubular steel rather than solid steel rods.  They provide extra stiffness without any extra weight.   Most of the cheapest tuning levers are made of solid steel with a wood handle.  These are often advertised as "student" model levers.  There are many higher-end steel levers available as well.

carbon fiber

Carbon fiber has the benefit of being light and extremely stiff at the same time.  It ranks higher in both categories than any of the other options.  Appropriately, it also ranks at the top of the price chart.

aluminum & titanium

Aluminum and titanium rank 2nd and 4th for stiffness and 2nd and 3rd for weight, respectively.  Titanium is comparable to carbon fiber with respect to price, while aluminum is generally in between carbon fiber and steel.  Both are much less common than steel or carbon fiber.  Aluminum has the potential to create a very stiff, lightweight, and reasonably priced lever.  Titanium is generally a poor choice due to expense and lack of stiffness.

See my review of the KineOptics PTH-5-1 Aluminum Tuning Hammer

Length

An extension lever.

Theoretically, a long lever is better than a short lever.  This is because most tuning is comprised of making very small rotational adjustments to the tuning pins.  If your goal is to turn a tuning pin by one degree, the end of a 254 mm (10 inch) long lever must move from its starting position by 4.3 mm.  A lever twice as long (20 inches) will only turn the pin about 1/2 a degree if its end is moved 4.3 mm.  Basically, small adjustments are easier with a long lever.

Now, you wont find a 20 inch lever for sale anywhere, because the other thing to consider is how it will fit inside the piano (let alone inside your tool bag).  Most levers are between 10" and 14" long.  Some are marketed as "extension" levers which start out somewhere around 10" but can be extended to provide more torque.  Some extend up to 18"!   Many compact levers under 10" are also available for use in tight quarters in the low bass and high treble.  These are usually only used as a companion to a full sized lever.

The other problem is that length is a double-edged sword.  The longer a lever is, the more flexible it will be.  This is particularly a problem with steel and titanium levers.  Many tuners also report that the mechanism used in extension levers introduces a lot of flexibility.

Tip Length

Tuning tips (the socket that fits over the tuning pin) vary in length between 1" and 3". The tip length that you choose will probably go hand in hand with the head angle that you choose.  This is because these two factors affect how well the lever will clear any obstructions in the piano (plate struts, stretcher, etc.)  A longer tip (usually used with a shallow head angle) will get the lever further from the pin and will give it more clearance.  A shorter tip (steep head angle) will keep the lever close and give less clearance.

Some tuners claim that a short tip gives them more control of the pin as there is less distance between the head and the top of the pin.

Head Angle

In addition to clearance, head angle affects how the force applied to the lever translates to the pin.  This angle is calculated as a positive deviation from 90 degrees to the lever (i.e. a 10 degree head would give a 100 degree angle between the tip and lever).  Available head angles vary from 5 degrees to 20 degrees.  A head of 0 degrees would provide the most efficient transfer of rotational force from the lever to the tuning pin.  As the angle gets larger, more of the rotational force is translated into a bending of the pin.  This can be illustrated by imagining a lever with a head angle close to 90 degrees (the lever and tip are almost in a straight line).  Trying to turn the pin by pushing on this lever would be completely ineffective and result in breaking the tuning pin.

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