This is because although there are 88 keys, the mid range and treble range keys have three strings each, whereas the bass has either pairs of strings or single strings. Each string is under a tension of up to 90kg , meaning that in a single key's worth of strings, there can be more tension than in a whole acoustic guitar! Multiply this across a whole Piano, and you have up to 20 tonnes of tension on that cast iron frame. You can understand why, when purchasing an older Piano, one thing to look out for is any cracks in the iron frame.
Older Pianos were manufactured before a full understanding of these tensions, and as a result they often have areas of very high tension on the frame, next to areas of lower tension. Whenever I restring a Piano, I first calculate the tension of the existing strings, based on their material, thickness and length. This allows me to identify any areas which are unbalanced, so I can rescale the Piano and achieve a more consistent tension across the frame. Rescaling the string tension in a Piano not only improves the longevity of the strings and frame, but also evens out the tonal qualities of the Piano, so each note sounds at an equal volume.
It means that you're getting the best possible sound from the Piano, applying modern techniques to even the oldest of Pianos. Home Services Contact.
How much tension is in a Piano? How to Tune a Piano Yourself. Before I start this explanation I will give the following disclaimer: trying to tune a Piano yourself can cause serious long term damage to the stability of your Piano's tuning, it's sound, and it's overall value. I'd recommend trying it out on a cheap or free instrument, don't try to tune your neighbour's Bosendorfer because you've always been told you are very musical or have a good ear!
The first thing you'll need are the right tools. Something like this will do the job for most pianos, although different Pianos have different sized tuning pins especially older ones so you may struggle to get a good fit without spending a lot on a more professional kit.
DO NOT try and use a socket wrench, it will permanently damage the tuning pins. The only other thing you'll need is an electronic tuning device. There are plenty available, but I'd suggest you install the trial version of Tunelab for Android; it's not in the app store, but you can get the installer from their website here. Don't try using a guitar tuner or any other standard tuner, it will not be sensitive or accurate enough, and cannot measure the stretch or inharmonicity of the Piano.
If you don't have an android device, an older version of the software is available for PC here. The first time you try and tune a Piano, you're likely to need at least 4 hours to do it, if not more. It takes years of practice to get up to a professional speed, so don't expect it to be quick. I usually allow an hour to tune if it requires just a fine tune, but a significantly out of tune Piano can take 2 or more hours to do, and sometimes it requires two appointments.
The tuning method I will describe is not how a professional tuner would typically go about doing it, but I think this will yield the best results for a beginner looking to get a playable Piano in the end. Here are the steps I would recommend if attempting to tune a Piano yourself. Open up the Piano , take off the top door, and then take off the fall. If you have a celeste rail you'll need to remove that too before you can start.
If you don't understand these terms, Use the Tunelab software set to hear A4, play the A4 note usually the 49th key and see how far out of tune it is. If the result is more than 50c flat, there is a good chance that trying to tune it to the correct pitch will break strings, in which case you may be best to tune it to the lower pitch it is at, or bring it up in pitch gradually, over time.
Read the instruction manual for the Tunelab software this is important! What if they had tried to tune every note on the piano to middle C without modifying the strings or inner workings of the instrument? The pitch of a vibrating string depends on its length, its density which generally corresponds to its thickness , and the tension placed on the string. Lengthening or thickening the strings lowers the pitch, while increasing the tension raises the pitch.
In theory, you can tune a string of any length and thickness to any pitch by adjusting its tension, so in theory, you can tune any string on a piano to any pitch. How much tension would you have to apply to do that? Pianos from uprights to concert grands all produce the same pitches on instruments of vastly different sizes, so there is no one standard for the lengths and densities of piano strings. We can just look at the relationship between frequency and tension and see that if we hold length and density constant, the frequency is proportional to the square root of the tension.
A middle C has pretty close to 10 times the frequency of the lowest note on a piano, so we would need about times the tension to tune the lowest string all the way up. In all likelihood, the string would break long before you tightened it all the way.
If somehow the string managed to hold out, it would go from needing around pounds of tension to 20, pounds, the difference between being able to hold a smallish football player and an entire football team. The total tension on a piano tops out at around 45, pounds spread over the 88 keys of a Steinway concert grand. Concentrating half that tension on just one string would probably rip the instrument apart. Never mind the fact that many of the other low strings would need almost as much tension, so the left side of the piano would have several football teams pulling on it.
While this does help absorb some of the sound, nothing can make up for it being more difficult to play soft passages on higher-tension pianos. Another compromise that had to be made with higher-tension models was shorter performance life.
First, the main reason why a piano will no longer be tunable is pin block failure. Pin blocks under less stress last longer which means the piano lasts longer. Second, when a tuner is tuning a piano with less pressure on the pins, the pins slide more easily into place and tend not to slide out of place. If you listen to a piano tuner tune which we do all of the time you can actually hear pins skipping. Over stretching the strings shortens their life and, again, effectively shortens the life of the instrument.
As computer technology evolved, computer aided design CAD took on a major role in the development of lower-tension pianos — which everybody wanted — that cost the same as higher-tension models. By going back to sand cast plates, sticking with timeless features like all hardwood action parts, and implementing new technologies like tapered wide-tail soundboards, we finally had moderately priced instruments that sounded musical and were fun to play.
0コメント