Male 1: Clearly as it needs. So your piano is clearly tried quite frankly.
Male 2: Just like skates. If you got your skates just so tight, you are not comfortable.
Male 1: That is pretty good. Now you notice, [piano notes]. This now is also on the sharp side now. That can make me very pesky. One thing to get into tension is try to get them to lose tension.
Anyway, our time is a little bit limited here. And, you did want me to give you an explanation as to why you should get your piano tuned. Because first of all, it will sound good. You should build up an educated ear definitely. With a singer, they have quite a bit of control of their voice, the guitarist, violinist, et cetera, they have a little bit of control over their tone.
Okay. Other, we can tap on the instrument and the condition to sound good. If your piano is out of tune, it is just not going to sound as good. You want it to have just like a chaotic universal. And by chaotic, I do not mean disordered. It actually has its own mild disorder. But in the cell, it is like a pocket universe. When it is in tune, the similarities that would come out of it would be most excellent and gratifying to the soul.
Now, the physical reason why you should keep your piano in tune is because – as I said, the whole thing is close to 20 times of tension. The wire that is used in the strings is a very springy wire, wire that is used to make springs. And its sound to have a memory. It has to have a memory so that it will retain its position. Piano wire is similar to a spring in that sense. Now, it is quite for your piano to memorize being out of tune. We know as well that there are sharp keys that it has to go across. The piano will memorize that position. If you leave your piano out of tune for a lengthy period of time, it becomes accustomed to have that bend in that spot, and it will be accustomed to have that bend in that spot so forth and so on. It gets accustomed, it memorizes its position.
Now, when the piano is tuned and tuned and tuned and tuned in a factory, they do it mostly with electronic tuning. But for the first few years, these strings are still going to tend to relax. And if in that interval, you keep your piano very close to pitch or right on pitch, eventually, it will become accustomed to being tuned. When I come across a piano that is half of a tone flat so I get this A or Ab or G. And actually, the worst that I have ever seen is when I play this, A and I heard that C. That was horrible. That was an English piano from the 1860’s, I was absolutely shocked basically since it was a very prosperous individual that owned this piano.
So, please keep your piano tuned regularly. If you want to get – if there is anybody in your area that belongs to the piano technician’s guild or you can account it, there is also the Canadian Association of Piano Technicians. Give them a dingle, they will at least let it pass a certain minimum rudimentary test to have shown it throughout a certain level of expertise. There are lot of guys around that have not passed those test especially in countries other than the North American or Central American companies. I mentioned in Germany and Austria for example, they have a whole different type of guild or a similar type of guild but going by a different name, I do not know what they would be. It is the same thing in England, there is probably some organization whereby people can take test. But please keep your piano in tuned because when the piano technicians comes and finds that it is a half tone flat, you can tone it but it is going to try to go back to the position that the piano has memorized. So if your piano has not been tuned for ten years, you should probably get it down every six months or not longer than a year until it is finally stabilized.
Piano manufacturers used to recommend a piano to be tuned every change of season, which in this climate, about six times a year. Reason with us, not really that practical. Get them do that at least once a year, once every eight months or so. It is okay. I find this climate, I prefer not to really tune it in August. There is something about it. They tend to be sharp. And I would say, it is very hurtsome to try to get the piano to lose tension rather than gain it because it is really tough to get the string to relax to that point.
So, that is what I find. As I am tuning the tenor section, it is quite sharp and getting things done so the bit rate is right and I go back and check and it is actually rythmed up a bit even if I got way past point and try to knock it down and bring it back up again.
Male 2: Going crazy or whatever?
Male 1: Or, it goes up. Now, that is what we have to do. Nothing is perfect. So, thanks very much folks. I hope that I have created some life there and knock your chair. And, it is a large question and a large subject. And hopefully, you learned something. Thanks very much.
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