Music Trade Review

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PIANO FACTORY and
PIANO SERVICING
DR. W M . BRAID WHITE
Technical Editor
Some Comments on
THE REGULATION OF
GRAND PIANOS
DR. WM. BRAID WHITE
I
HAVK had a most interesting letter froin
Mr. Fred Cunningham, of Greenwood,
Miss., on the regulating of grand pianos.
Mr. Cunningham has been a successful
tuner for a long time in his part of the
world, but he tells me that, like many others
of the craft, he has always been uncertain on
some essential points of the regulating of
grand pianos. In his letter he speaks par-
ticularly about Steinvvay grand pianos and
the regulating of their actions. I shall there-
fore discuss here this month some of the
points of grand action regulating as they
appear before and confront the outside tuner.
Mr. Cunningham rightly observes that an
outside tuner has a problem to solve quite
different from that which is put before the
man in the shop who can follow a well-
smoothed road. In the shop a carefully laid
out routine may be followed from the be-
ginning to the end of each day's work. Even-
piano comes to the regulator in the same
condition. That is to say, each one comes to
him "action-finished," which means that its
action and keys have been adjusted to its
strings, and that it therefore can already be
played, in the sense that keys can be pressed
and that hammers, as a result of the pressure,
will strike strings and so induce tones. The
business of the regulator is to make those
fine adjustments which give elasticity, re-
sponsiveness and physical uniformity to the
action, and thereby turn the piano into a
musical instrument of artistic stature. Tac-
tual and mechanical perfection are quite as
important to the piano as the physical prop-
erties of its strings and of its soundboard.
Now the outside tuner usually finds him-
self called upon to do work upon the actions
of grand pianos only when either some phys-
ical defect has become extremely noticeable,
THE
M U S I C
TRADE
or else when he himself in the course of tun-
ing discovers conditions imperatively calling
for correction. If he is a conscientious artist
he may very often do correction work for
which he does not get paid; but that is an-
other story. Now, just because most of the
pianos which have to be regulated by him
are, for these reasons, more or less well worn
and show the effects of wear, he will nearly
always have to deal with sagging touch, loss
of key dip, loss of escapement of hammers,
rattling, clicking, failure of repetition, fail-
ure of damping, failure or defect of working
in the damper pedal, failure or defect in
the other two pedals.
Tone regulating I shall not here discuss,
and so the physical condition of the hammer
felt shall be left for the time being out of
consideration.
KEY FRAME IS FOUNDATION
Now the grand action rests, physically and
mechanically alike, upon its key frame. The
first thing to examine then is this frame, and
the first thing to do is to make sure that the
keys are aligned properly and that each one
has its proper depth of descent in the front
and height of ascent in the rear.
The chapter on the action and its Tegula-
tion of my "Modern Piano Tuning" contains
a complete treatment of the whole regulation
problem and has especially explained all
the facts connected with the keyboard, the
depth of touch and so on. Now it is very
important to remember that one cannot re-
store an action to its pristine usefulness un-
less one first attends to the key frame and
the keys. One should first remove the action
entirely and then place at the back of each
key a small lump of lead equal in weight to
REVIEW,
one section of the action. It is worth taking
the trouble to weigh the hammer, stem, and
wippen, and then to have eighty-eight little
lumps of lead prepared, each with a bit of
wire protruding from it, of such a kind that
the lead can be stuck into the back of the
key near the capstan, by means of it. This
will hold the parts of the keys up as if the
action were actually in place. The keys may
then be lined up, leveled, and if necessary
raised. Usually there will be some loss of
level in the middle of the key frame, in
which case one should loosen the screws
which hold the middle keyrail (balance rail)
to the frame and slip between rail and frame
two little strips of cardboard, one on each
side of the screw. It may be necessary to do
this at more than one point. I might say
here that one of the essential tools in work
of this kind is a good straight-edge, long
enough to go across the whole keyboard and
light enough to rest on the keys without de-
pressing them. A good plan is to get a car-
penter to make a straight-edge from a suit-
able piece of straight-grained pine or spruce.
Maple is a bit heavy.
When one starts to level up it is advisable
to cut two small blocks of wood, each Y% f
thick and pierced with a hole in its center.
These are to be slipped over the front rail
pins of keys No. 1 and No. 88. They must
be small enough in their other dimensions to
rest comfortably on the front-rail punchings.
The straight-edge can rest on these, and the
key leveling then becomes quite a simple mat-
ter.
KEYBEDS SOMETIMES SAG
At the same time it is well to look always
at the keyboard of the piano, and to test by
WHERE CAN YOU GET
PLAYER ACTION
REPAIRS and SUPPLIES
The MOORE and FISHER Manufacturing Co.
Deep River, Conn.
July, 1 9 3 1
27