Notwithstanding the reference to My Fair Lady, for which I'm now in rehearsals, last evening with Zelda was a bit of success story. I was up with her (again) until 3 AM until there was a (nearly) perfectly tuned piano raised to A440 pitch. And when I returned to the keyboard this morning 95% of the tuning had held. She still couldn't pass herself off as Hungarian royalty as in the case of Eliza Doolittle; but now that you can hear what her potential is, it's pretty clear that her lineage is a cut above the ordinary. As I mentioned before -- good bones.
Since this was the third round of her pitch raising in less than a week, I'm relieved that I can just let her be for a few days while I learn a bit more about the the whole tuning process. (As I'm sure is Ranger, who heads for secure places out of earshot when I'm working on her. Yesterday I found him on a shelf tucked behind my camera case.) And given all the stress I've put her through it's probably better not to keep pushing the limits until she's had a little time to become accustomed to her new sound.
She is, after all, nearly a 100 years old. At 61 my bones ache and pop after each day's work. I can only imagine the tension I've added to her frame during this weeklong workout. There definitely was a bit of groaning in the process.
The first two pitch raisings were pretty rough -- just approximate. But yesterday, after I'd set my A47 to 440, I took the time to carefully reset the entire temperament, using the Defebaugh "F-F" temperament and the Potter "F-A" temperament with its tests as a double check. Because I didn't want to go through another huge marathon pitch raising, I managed to get every note in the temperament perfect before I spread it through the rest of the piano. When the mid-range is in tune like that, it becomes very easy to hear the extreme treble since you can test it against against any number of interval progressions to double check the accuracy of your work. And, I'm still in awe of how easy it becomes to tune the growly base through the use of partials.
The bottom line is that Zelda sounds pretty darn good at the moment. Treble, mid-range and bass are all clean -- she has more of crystalline sound now, if there is such a thing.
The downside of being in tune is that it's now more obvious where other problem areas lie. Though I'm not yet far enough along in my studies to diagnose all that ails her, it's pretty clear there are some strings that are overly rusted and have a brittle and/or tinny sound. I suspect I've just scratched the surface of her troubles. Nonetheless, it all appears -- so far -- to be relatively cosmetic -- a poor string here, some sticking keys, a broken action, hardened felts, etc. Hopefully, no major surgery will be required.
The other major milestone yesterday in my quest to become a registered piano technician was sending in my first taped exams. These were the "unison" tests. And, of course, I did them before the temperament was corrected. Probably not the smartest thing. Hopefully, it shouldn't be a major problem in evaluating how well I did. But a few of the notes I was tuning definitely had false beats in them creating a bit of a "wobble" regardless of how pure the unisons were. To be determined -- that's why I'm sending the tapes to the experts.
