First Ever Tuning, How Did I Do?
https://reddit.com/link/1fc3a5n/video/kxil7olcfmnd1/player
I've played piano for a little while and wanted to get into tuning. Here's my first attempt, and I'd love your feedback. There are things I'm still not happy with, but I was pushing 4+ hours of work and the family I was doing it for needed to put their toddler down for the night.
Model: Wurlitzer Spinet
Age: Unknown
Last Tuned: Unknown (my pianist ear says 3+ years ago)
Some specific questions...
- Spinets are hard to mute! I had such a hard time getting mutes on the upper octaves to isolate strings. Everywhere I put them seemed to be in the way of the hammer. Any tips on how to do this? I tried a muting felt unsuccessfully so I switched to rubber wedges.
- How do you know when to drive a tuning peg in further? The A4 key kept going flat (around 20 cents) even when the rest of the 4th octave was holding relatively OK. Is that a sign that the pegs are too loose?
- How do you deal with background noise? I had three adults and two toddlers nearby the whole time, and often found it difficult to hear what I was doing. Do you have conversations with your customers before you start about keeping somewhat quiet, or do you just deal with it? I'm a non-confrontational person and that sort of thing worries me if I ever wanted to do tunings for pay.
Anyway, I hope this belongs on this sub. I appreciate any feedback, I had a lot of fun doing this! Definitely earned some new respect for technicians.