Stretched Tuning

[balfour-knight]

I have been a professional piano tuner since I was 15 years old, so tuning the harp, even 47 strings, is extremely easy for me. I use a Korg tuner to tune and temper the middle octave of a piano or harp, then do the rest of the instrument by ear. My ear does the natural “stretching” that you guys are talking about, so I do not have to calculate it with a machine. My music professors liked my tuning so much when I was in college that I got asked to tune all of their pianos, which helped me to be able to afford to stay in college.

If you check my tuning with the Korg after I am done, the bass will appear “flat” and the treble will appear “sharp.” String players and other instrumentalists have to compensate for this when playing along with a piano, as Saul said above.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

What is your maximum stretch, then? 5, 10 cents or more?

[balfour-knight]

Saul, it varies with each particular piano and harp. The longer the bass strings are, like in a concert grand piano or harp, the more I seem to stretch by ear. But it is usually 4 cents or less, when checked with the Korg tuner. When I was regulating the lowest E (7E) on my Atlantide this weekend, I checked it on the Korg after I had meticulously tuned the harp by ear. The 7E read 3 cents flat, so I had obviously stretched the tuning by only 1 cent per octave. This means that 7E flat, 7E natural, and 7 E# ALL read 3 cents flat, which was perfectly regulated. If that string was tuned up that 3 cents, to what the Korg says is “perfect A=440” then all 3 pitches would also be exact half steps from each other. When Carl said that he tunes exclusively by the tuner, not by ear, when he regulates harps, the half steps are perfect, regardless of whether the harpist stretches the tuning by ear or not. We only actually TUNE the flats, in C flat Major! The discs take care of everything else. The harp would be perfectly regulated in half steps, using the tuner.

[balfour-knight]

I should add that we regulate a harp as perfectly as we CAN in half steps, ha, ha! It is very likely not to be “perfect,” but if it sounds good to the human ear, it is wonderful!

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

When I do stretched tuning, I gradually work up to a five-cent increase at the top and bottom, also allowing for the pitches to flatten while playing. Miss Lawrence did not specify how much, but suggested taking pitch from a well-tuned piano (tuners were a brand-new item at that time). I didn’t like the stretch on the Peterson strobe, but I don’t like using their strobes at all, I find them misleading. I think it’s like cream, if you like it sweet, tune exactly to pitch, if you like sour cream, stretch the tuning. One advantage is that it extends the range of the harp and can give a bigger sound in the bass.

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