Too much time has passed since my last entry. There have been intervening concerts, rehearsals, classes, productions, volunteer commitments, which have occupied most of my spare time beyond work. Consquently, I haven't been writing a lot about progress with Zelda. Nonetheless, I've continued reading about and practicing tuning. In the last month I've been working on understanding different approaches to temperament tuning -- there's the Coleman A-A, the Defebaugh F-F and the European A-A small. And, of course, my instructor Randy Potter has three different variations on his F-A temperament. So, I've worked with them all and finally found one that -- in the absence of having any fancy tuning machines to check me -- I can hear well.
So, over the last two evenings, I decided to take another leap of faith with Zelda.
You may remember that bringing her up to pitch a few weeks ago was a big step. Because the old girl hadn't really been even close to pitch for a number of years, it took several rough tunings for her to hold steady. Then the weather began to shift like crazy here in Key West. It's alternately been hot, humid, cold, rainy, windy or dry -- sometimes over the course of just a few days. Not the easiest time for any piano, much less an old girl who's trying to get back on her feet. As a consequence, in addition to my needing to read, practice and learn a great deal more about temperaments, I decided to hold off doing any more major adjustments during this period to prevent overstressing her.
Though the weather is still crazy I felt I'd expanded my knowledge base and my ability enough to take a chance to give her a fine tuning. Besides, all those "almost-but-not-quite" notes were driving me crazy. So I opened her up again two nights ago and went at it.
Since I'm learning, I'm slow and the process is a bit painful -- certainly, Ranger thinks so. While I was working through the new temperament, the poor kitty spent most of his time hiding as far away as he could under the bed. I have this vision of him under the blankets with his paws over his ears. It took me two hours the first evening just to set the temperament perfectly. But within that narrow F-A range every note played well with every other...finally. I'd done it!
Now, all I had to do was extend the temperament through all the other 72 notes and tune all the unisons for each string. That was last night's exercise.
After getting home from work and making a light supper, I started the process. Ranger headed back under the bed. I started with the mid range, then worked on the treble, which is the trickiest with Zelda. While I can hear the differences in intonation and the beats in the highest register her strings are so old and brittle that even a hammer turn of less than a sixteenth of an inch can make a half-pitch difference. As a result, getting the octaves to match those of the temperament was challenging to say the least. Once they were set, getting the unisons for each string was just as challenging. There were moments when I was wanting to join Ranger under the bed just to give my ears a rest. That process alone took two hours. Tuning the bass using Coleman's ghost tones went much faster. I finished the tuning around 10:30 PM.
I'd been running test interval sixths, octaves, tenths and seventeenths throughout the whole evening; but the big test, after I'd removed all the felt strips, was how well do test chords carry throughout the whole instrument.
Oh my gosh, I couldn't believe it. Zelda was a whole new instrument. Despite the continued problems with rusty strings and some cranky action, she was singing!
As I played Marianne McPartland's luxuriant version of "My Funny Valentine" for a test run, I could hear singing of another sort. Ranger was sitting purring at my feet, eyes locked on me in amazement. He stayed there for the entire ten-minute piece.
I think the jury is in -- I can do this! Now I just have to learn to tune in less than two days.
So, over the last two evenings, I decided to take another leap of faith with Zelda.
You may remember that bringing her up to pitch a few weeks ago was a big step. Because the old girl hadn't really been even close to pitch for a number of years, it took several rough tunings for her to hold steady. Then the weather began to shift like crazy here in Key West. It's alternately been hot, humid, cold, rainy, windy or dry -- sometimes over the course of just a few days. Not the easiest time for any piano, much less an old girl who's trying to get back on her feet. As a consequence, in addition to my needing to read, practice and learn a great deal more about temperaments, I decided to hold off doing any more major adjustments during this period to prevent overstressing her.
Though the weather is still crazy I felt I'd expanded my knowledge base and my ability enough to take a chance to give her a fine tuning. Besides, all those "almost-but-not-quite" notes were driving me crazy. So I opened her up again two nights ago and went at it.
Since I'm learning, I'm slow and the process is a bit painful -- certainly, Ranger thinks so. While I was working through the new temperament, the poor kitty spent most of his time hiding as far away as he could under the bed. I have this vision of him under the blankets with his paws over his ears. It took me two hours the first evening just to set the temperament perfectly. But within that narrow F-A range every note played well with every other...finally. I'd done it!
Now, all I had to do was extend the temperament through all the other 72 notes and tune all the unisons for each string. That was last night's exercise.
After getting home from work and making a light supper, I started the process. Ranger headed back under the bed. I started with the mid range, then worked on the treble, which is the trickiest with Zelda. While I can hear the differences in intonation and the beats in the highest register her strings are so old and brittle that even a hammer turn of less than a sixteenth of an inch can make a half-pitch difference. As a result, getting the octaves to match those of the temperament was challenging to say the least. Once they were set, getting the unisons for each string was just as challenging. There were moments when I was wanting to join Ranger under the bed just to give my ears a rest. That process alone took two hours. Tuning the bass using Coleman's ghost tones went much faster. I finished the tuning around 10:30 PM.
I'd been running test interval sixths, octaves, tenths and seventeenths throughout the whole evening; but the big test, after I'd removed all the felt strips, was how well do test chords carry throughout the whole instrument.
Oh my gosh, I couldn't believe it. Zelda was a whole new instrument. Despite the continued problems with rusty strings and some cranky action, she was singing!
As I played Marianne McPartland's luxuriant version of "My Funny Valentine" for a test run, I could hear singing of another sort. Ranger was sitting purring at my feet, eyes locked on me in amazement. He stayed there for the entire ten-minute piece.
I think the jury is in -- I can do this! Now I just have to learn to tune in less than two days.
Congratulations!!!!
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