Free Unisons and Stability Course
Lesson 4 - Introduction to Stability
Clean unisons are not an option. I know I've said that a few times already.
Once you are able to tune a clean unison, and know it, you have to get it to stay clean.
Loud playing creates a lot of stress on the string like changing its tension and changing the friction stopping the string from slipping at the bearing point. These changes can cause one of the unison strings to slip, and when that happens, good bye clean unison!
Stability is the skill of being able to tune a string so it does not change pitch, even when the note is played loudly.
What Is Stability?
Watch the video below for an explanation.
(Video from paid Superior Stability course - Lesson 1)
The following video shows that current stability instruction is weak and how important it is for you to understand why a technique works, not just how to perform it.
The Solution:
Look for my next email in which I will share with you how I teach people to get pure unisons and specifically, how to get superior stability - the ability to set pitches that don't move, even under the hardest of playing.
I will show you why these techniques work, so you can figure out what to do when they DON'T, which happens far too often with the traditional ways .
You know the old saying, "Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach them to fish and you feed them for a lifetime"?
Well, it's like that with learning. Tell someone what to do and you teach them how to gets results only when all the variables let it work. Tell them why it works, and you teach them how to get results in all types of conditions they will encounter.
When I started tuning pianos, people told me to keep my hammer at 12:00, go sharp and ease the pitch down, and don't bend/flex/tilt/flagpole the tuning pin.
Well, that worked "when all the variables agreed".
Problem was, when it didn't work, I had no idea what to do and neither did they!
So, I set out to find the answers.
It wasn't easy. You see, piano tuning is a grassroots kind of activity. Many people just figure it out as they go. There are no schools dedicated to research. They just regurgitate the common knowledge. "It's like black magic", as one of my students, who is an engineer, put it.
So, as an engineer myself, I had to science the heck out of this thing using physics, friction, elasticity, elastic deformation, experimental data, tension analysis, and pitch measurements. By be critical and using science and data, I was able to develop a theory that helped me reproduce expected results 100% of the time.
I now know why strings slip during hard playing and can imagine how to change my technique to one that makes an unstable string stable!
No more being frustrated or confused with ANY piano.
Now, I never feel anxious to tune any piano. When I hear other people complain about Steinway uprights for example, and how hard they are to tune, I just smile, because I know why they are hard to tune, and what to do to make them stable.
Not everybody is interested in this new information. People are caught up in the years of being told one way of doing something, and now they find it difficult to accept anything that seems to go against the common knowledge of how to do something.
The problem is, this doesn't go against that common knowledge, it explains why and when that common knowledge works.
It also challenges the validity of the common instructions.
Now, I know how, when, and why I can use a hammer angle other than 12:00. I also know how, when, and why I can use gentle flexing of the tuning pin during tuning to easily produce a stable string.
People have tuned pianos for years believing that these techniques produce poor stability. For them, this approach may be beyond their ability to take advantage of it.
But for people who are open minded or just starting out, it opens up a new way for them to get results FAST!
Now, there is a way for students of piano tuning to learn the skill of stability and get it to work on all pianos, no matter the design or condition.
No more blaming the piano.
In my next email, I show you how to
Get Great Sounding Unisons that Stay in Tune!