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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
11
OuTTECHNlCAL DEPARTMENT
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM BRAID WHITE.
SLUGGISH PLAYER=PIANOS.
To say that the tuner's troubles never cease
would be grossly to Hatter the tuner. The fact is
that the tuner's life is trouble. Of course, I don't
mean by this any of the rot one hears from grouchy
people who are always bewailing their lot. In fact,
I don't mean anything at all about "trouble" in the
sense of difficulty and annoyance. I ought to have
said, no doubt, instead of being mysterious, simply
that the tuner's life is "taking trouble." Taking
pains is his life, or should be. His principal busi-
ness in life is to do well what is very easily done
badly, stupidly, untidily and altogether badly. There
is some sort of direful spell that hangs around
things used in the home. They all deteriorate in
looks, in finish, in efficiency, so quickly that one
can only look on amazed. To see a fine piano in
the warerooms and then again three weeks later
in the home where it has been bought is to see an-
other istrument, almost. That is the tuner's task ;
to keep in good cond'tion the one thing of all
things known to man that the most quickly gets
to look and act in a thoroughly disreputable man-
ner. There is something about the average house-
hold that makes these things so. What it is I do
not know; but it is.
Taking trouble is a mild statement of the case.
At this time of the year the experienced tuner
begins to anticipate with a sigh the coming of
what we may call the "sluggish months." With
the arrival of early summer, when the rest of the
world is thinking of a pleasant vacation time,
the unhappy tuner is thinking mainly of facing
the action that refuses to work, the keys that
insist on sticking and the fallboard that posi-
tively declines to come out. O! happy tuner!
Nothing to do but to wonder whether he dare
fall victim to the temptation to purchase a little
temporary ease with "just one" drop of coal oil
on the action centers, and whether the result may
not perhaps be all right this once!
But if piano actions are bad, what about player
actions? To be serious again (this habit of
imagining myself a humorist and acting according-
ly is growing on me and I am getting frightened
about it), the player-piano has simply added to
the tuner's burdens so far as concerns suscep-
tibility to atmospheric influence. There are just
so many more things to rattle and so many more
to stick. Let us consider the latter evil:
The parts of a player-piano which are most
likely to give trouble through susceptibility to at-
mospheric and climatic changes are: (1) The
connections between pneumatics and piano action;
(2) the valves, especially the secondaries, and (3)
the motor. Taking these in order we find, first, that
in a good many player-pianos the connection be-
tween pneumatics and piano action is not particu-
larly well worked out. It will frequently be found
that this connection consists merely of a rod of
wood or wire mounted in a bushed rail and with
a wooden head whore the connection with the piano
abstract comes. Sometimes we find merely a
wooden rod. Now, the mere fact that the contact
between the pneumatic plunger rods and the piano
action is always a rolling contact implies the ae-
velopment of friction. It will, in fact, be found
that any cause which may operate to increase fric-
tion will tend to make the action play sluggishly,
especially on light pumping and rapid repetition.
Careful examination will usually disclose the fact
that the contact is made between two pieces of
felt, one on the piano action and one on the
plunger rod. Here is where friction develops.
The best way to remedy a trouble like this, of
course, is to remove the felt and substitute buck-
skin carefully treated with powdered graphite; but
if this be too expensive the felt should be smoothed
on with sandpaper and then both surfaces treated
with powdered graphite rubbed in until the porous
surface of the felt is well filled.
Should the sluggishness have developed through
swelling of the plungers in their bushings, the
remedy is obvious; but I do not think that it is a
good thing ever to have wood plungers working
it. felted bushings. There is no doubt that such
methods always invite excessive friction and con-
sequent sluggish operation. The best method of
all is to use graphite, powdered, rubbed in and
burnished, on all wooden surfaces which must
come in contact with each other.
As for the valve systems, that is a horse of an-
other color. One of the meanest appearing troubles,
and yet one of the simplest remedied, is when the
secondary valves refuse to seat, either through
some swelling of the valve board whereby the
pouches draw together and force the stems of the
valves too high, or else through the formation
of rust or verdigris on the metal seat rings of the
valves, whereby the discs are prevented from seat-
ing. On such valves, whenever a perfect seat is not
obtained, the discs are forced into a sort of betwixt
and between position, so that a passage from the
atmosphere to the interior of the secondary
vacuum chest is kept open constantly, preventing
the production of a vacuum and consequently pre-
venting the player from playing. One forces the
pedals, but gets no response, and the difficulty often
appears quite insoluble. But it will be found to
yield quite quickly to the treatment of which I
speak. There are other difficulties of the same
sort. For instance, it will sometimes be found
that the primary valves in double valve actions stick
through swelling of the stems. That is to say,
they will rise part of the way, but not enough to
admit the proper quantity of air to the secondary
pouches, so that the operation of the entire action
will be sluggish or weak The remedy, of course,
is to take out the primary board, remove the of-
fending stems (usually by knocking off the but-
tons) and rolling them down between two files
until they have regained their rightful size. It is
well to examine carefully the primary system when
notes are found to work too slowly or to repeat
very weakly. This will often be the fault only of
the primaries, as I have said.
The bleed system is not likely to suffer from
any special derangement due to swelling through
dampness, or, in fact, to any of the other summer
complaints. Therefore it is generally better to
look to the primary and secondary valves first when
weak and sluggish repetition is discovered.
The inexperienced tuner is likely to rush to any
and all sorts of wild experiments in an effort to
locate the trouble when it is of the nature 1 liave
been describing; but a little thought and analysis
will enable him to discover for himself usually
where to look for the trouble; and when one can
do that the remedy is easily found in most cases.
I have sometimes seen queer difficulties arising
from swelling of parts in the governors, as, for
instance, motors refusing to run steadily and
equally refusing to respond to the ordinary gover-
nor treatment. This was due to governor valves
swelling up. Then the same trouble will sometimes
FAUST SCHOOI^OF TUNING
be found in the expression governors; but these
annoyances, fortunately, arc not of frequent oc-
currence.
Motors, speaking generally, suffer from only one
summer complaint; namely, swelling of the valves
when these are of wood. The remedy is to take
down the slides, put a square over the sliding sur-
face and see if it is true. If it is not true, it must
be planed down until it is. Then the valve can be
tried out again and tested to see if it fits cleanly.
The point is that if the surface on which the slide
moves swells up or has any unevenness—either
through dampness or from any other cause—the
slides will not form an airtight cover as they move
and in consequence air will find its way under them
and destroy the effort to create a vacuum in the
motor. Then the motor will not run rightly, if at
all. But modern motors, fortunately, do not give
much trouble in this respect, for usually their sur-
faces are metal or else are treated in some way
which insures them comparative immunity from
swelling.
From all this it will be seen that the player-piano
differs from the piano mainly »in having more
places at which some little trouble due to swelling
can develop. Swelling up of wood is a summer
complaint, as it were, and the ill effects usually
disappear when the fires are put on in the fall.
Hence the tuner should endeavor, while remedying
the trouble if he can, not to do anything radical,
for he will then only have his work to undo in six
months. It is better to make the adjustment as
simple and superficial as possible.
Another thing is that people of the less musical
kind often expect the most absurd things of a
player-piano and grumble if they don't get them.
Impossible repetition is often demanded. There
are people who have a mania for grinding out
everything at top speed and, of course, when such
people encounter a roll with a lot of trills or repeti-
tion on a* single note they find that they don't get
repetition at a tempo of 100 or 110 and at once
make a fearful howl about it. Those people must
be firmly but kindly told that the piano action will
only repeat about ten times a second at best and
that the average pianist can only operate a key
about four times in the some time; so that, after
all, so long as the player-piano works two and a
half times quicker than the ordinary hand player,
ir is rather asking too much to expect any more
from it. Of course, don't be too sarcastic or they
may think you are kidding them.
As I said at the beginning of these cursory re-
marks, the tuner has his troubles. As W. S. Gil-
bert might have said (but didn't) :
When player regulating's to be done
A tuner's life is not a happy one.
But then it might be worse. We might be mov-
ing picture actors, for instance, and have to live up
to our reputations.
Communications for this department should be
addressed to William Braid White, care The Music
Trade Review, New York.
Tuners and Repairmen
Can make good money installing Jenkin-
son's Player-Action into used Pianos. Write
for catalogue.
JENKINSON PLAYER CO.
912 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Polk's Piano Trade School
1
PIANO KEYS BLEACHED
REPAIRED OR RECOVERED
Work Done in 6 to 11 Days
and Guaranteed
Send Us Your Keys by Parcels Post
JOS. ZIEGLER & SON
MtonreeTllle, O.
Piano, Player-Piano, Pipe and Reed Organ Tuning and Re-
pairing, also Regulating, Voicing, Varnishing andPolishing
This formerly was the tuning department of the New Eng-
land Conservatory of Music, and Oliver C. Faust was head
of that department for 20 years previous to its discontinu-
ance.
Courses in mathematical piano scale construction and
drafting of same have been added.
Pupils have daily practise in Chickerinf & Sons' factory.
Year Book sent free upon request.
27-29 GAINSBOROUGH ST., BOSTON, MASS.
Piano,
14th YEAR
Player-Piano and Organ Tuaimg,
Repairing and Regulating.
Most thoroughly equipped Piano Trade Sckool in
U. S. Private instruction. Factory experience if to-
sired. Students assisted. Diplomas awarded. Sck*ol
entire year. Endorsed by leading piano manufacturers
and dealers. Fre« catalogue.
C. C. POLK
Bex 29S Valparaiso, U 4 .