Good evening everyone, I am a forty-year-old former piano student.
I stopped at the threshold of the 5th [grade] but now I would like to dust off the instrument.
I own a Yamaha upright piano from the '80s with the action in good condition.
The peculiarity of this Yamaha is that the last 23 high notes are without
dampers and therefore always vibrate freely, and even though it has the standard
tuning pins, there is very little space to insert a wedge
between the strings without the wedge obstructing the hammers.
Anyway, measuring the height of the high notes with an inexpensive digital tuner
that measures cents, they appear to spike from 0 up to +20
as per the Railsback curve, so I assume that the last two octaves
have remained unchanged since the last tuning.
I wanted to get familiar with the tuning pins, so I did an initial tuning
setting the middle octave at 0 cents at 440 for every note and then applying it
via harmonics across the entire keyboard except for the last two high octaves.
The result is that the piano is playable but not exciting, not convincing, not moving,
and irregularities can be heard, especially in the low-mid range.
So I decided to try an aural tuning following a guide found on the internet.
Here, multiple doubts and questions arise which, in the eyes of an expert, might
border on the nonsensical, but I will nonetheless try to present them to you in an orderly fashion:
1) I start with the fourth A3 - D4. I read in the guide:
"Fourths should be tuned ascending, with one beat per second, making
it so that the higher note is sharp and the lower note is flat"
What does this mean ??? That I have to raise the D4 by a few cents and lower
the A3 which I had previously perfectly tuned with the tuning fork?
2) I seem to hear a beat of one second, but it is only
a vague impression. An acoustic illusion? How do I know
when the fourth is properly regulated?
3) I move on to the fifth G3 - D4. I read in the guide:
"Fifths should be tuned descending, with 3 beats every 5 seconds, making
it so that the higher note is flat and the lower note is sharp"
But how ??? If the highest is the D4 which I have just fixed and cannot touch,
so what do I do? Do I raise the G3 by a larger amount?
4) Are the beats of the fourths and fifths only heard once the result is achieved, or
would they be heard anyway even if they were regulated mathematically at -0+ cents?
5) The beats of the third F3 - A3 should be 7 per second, increasing
by 0.5 every semitone. But how does one measure by ear that they are 7 per second?
In any case, I don't hear these at all, not even the impression of them. Instead, I feel a
vibration in my fingers if I keep them pressed against the keys, especially on the third Bb2 - D3.
6) If I were to measure with the tuner the notes from F3 to F4 after the aural tuning,
aware that pianos differ from one another, on average what deviation
would the twelve measured notes have from -0+ in cents?
7) If instead I tuned by fifths using the second harmonic, what would happen?
I thank in advance anyone who can give me some tips on this DIY tuning.
