What do you do with a flat pi-a-no?

[damont]

The piano in the choir room is badly out of tune: most of the keys are a bit flat, and the octave below middle C is just totally FUBAR (keys wildly out of tune with each other, et cetera ad nauseam, though the nauseam kicks in pretty damn fast).

Me: "Someday I'm going to have to do something about that piano."
Choir Director: "Why?"
blaisedec: "He has perfect pitch just like [another choir member] does."
Me: "I'm just not sure if the solution involves a tuning wrench or a 12-gauge."

The women did today's anthem, which was just as well since my voice wasn't up to it (allergies, gotta make sure I do the Claritin regularly). The men are doing a 19th century Russian piece next week.

Comments

The one nasty pitfall

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

Oh, and one more warning. Somtimes steel strings get very used to being where they are. In fact, they will get kinked or bent at their resting points and when you go to tighten them, they will resist and then "pop" as they snap past the bent section. Don't panic too much if this happens here or there. As soon as it "pops", see where you landed tuning wise, and deal with it after it's had some rest. Chances are, it will "land" slightly sharp and then flatten as it settles. Sometimes you get lucky and it flattens into tune. If it does, say "Woohoo!"
The fact that most of your strings are currently flat is a good omen for this phenomenon, because you're taking that bent section and pulling it away from the "vibrating area". It's when these kinks are on strings that are sharp that you get a problem because the kink will wind up in the "vibrating area" and cause the string to have TWO vibrational lengths and that is a tuning nightmare. Ask me how I know.
It will be these kinks in the strings that will be the source of most of your string breakage, should any occur. Sometimes (but thankfully, only sometimes) the string will "pop" back and forth over this kink from too shap to too flat and never settle right. That string will need to be replaced.
If you can't replace it just yet:
If you encounter one, and it lands a wee bit flat, leave it there. You may be able, in time, to stretch the kink back out, and leaving the kink out of the "vibrating area" is what you want. One note slightly flat will cause a whole lot less pain than a sharp note with two vibrational frequencies.

Don't let this one pitfall scare you out of trying this. As I said, it doesn't always happen and it's not always a dealbreaker when it does. And remember, even if you find you can't completely rehab this instrument, I'll betcha a dollar you can score enough improvement to make the ear pain manageable.

But anyway, point is, that all is not lost, and that patience and persistence are extremely likely to get you most of a functional piano back.
And if patience and perstistence fail, sheer obsessive stubbornness is pretty likely to work in time- unless that is, you're dealing with a piano that can't be rehabbed at all. But short of that, this is something a patient layman can learn to do. Ask me how I know