I tuned organs and my own harpsichord for twenty years before retiring. I
still tune the organ (Casavant) I play on Sundays. I tuned my first piano
(mine) about 1990. And after than I tuned several of the church pianos as
well as some others for people that I knew. Not difficult at all. Stretch
the octaves becuse the harmonics are off. Don't use a tuning machine. Best
by ear as was done historically. Every octave is sharper because of the
inharmonicity and you can hear it. Not so with organs or harpsichords. My
home piano is a 1907 Heinzmann (Made in Toronto)  Beautiful. Canada has
lost its piano making industry completely to the far east.  I guess the USA
still has Balwin and Steinway, both of which to my ears sound dull and dry.
Heinzmann made better sounding pianos back in their prime, but went
downhill.  Anyway, just go thru the 5ths and tune it to equal temperament.
I tune my harpsichord to various UNequal temperaments because I like to
experiment. But my piano sounds best in ET.  Haha: i never bother to tune
the bottom few notes. I don't play them and they sound like crap anyway.

Best wishes all,
-rob

On 25 September 2016 at 14:56, dc <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> How hard is it for someone who's been tuning harpsichords for almost 40
> years to tune an old (upright) Pleyel piano? I'm not worried about the time
> it will probably take, at least the first time, but about possible damage
> that inexperience could cause.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Dennis
>
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-- 
Robert Watson
Ontario, Canada

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Note:  opinions  expressed on HPSCHD-L are those of the  individual con-
tributors and not necessarily  those of the list owners  nor of the Uni-
versity of Iowa.  For a brief  summary of list  commands, send mail to
[log in to unmask]  saying  HELP .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::