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Our old piano tuner explained to me how in practice when tuning you must stretch the high notes higher and the low notes lower so as to make the piano sound rig

Our old piano tuner explained to me how in practice when tuning you must stretch the high notes higher and the low notes lower so as to make the piano sound right. He didn't explain why. It was obvious if you played octaves and listened to the notes, and he was an excellent piano tuner and the piano did sound good. The first comment in the article describes it nicely and links to the excellent Wikipedia section which everybody here ought to read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_acoustics#The_Railsback_curve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_acoustics#The_Railsbac...

naringas 8y ago
Indeed, if one tuned a piano like the article describes it wouldn't sound good. As far as I undesrtand it has to do with the thickness (i.e. the real world physicallity) of the lower octave strings. The strings are not trully one-dimensional. this makes their timbre deviate from the ideal harmonic series. This is specially true for the thicker strings of the lower notes. If we could make a piano using very thin strings we could get away with a less stretched tuning.
- radiowave 8y ago
  Making the strings (and therefore the piano) longer helps, hence the size of concert grand pianos.
- richardhod 8y ago
  Indeed it's generally true for thicker strings at all pitches, though perhaps more so for lower ones for this case. The longer the strings, the better the sound in general, too, for related stiffness-timbre reasons. Even a tall upright you can tell can sound better than any short upright, and Grand pianos take this to greater extremes of length.
tim333 8y ago
That came up on HN 39 days ago "Why are pianos traditionally tuned “out of tune” at the extremes?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18988774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18988774 As an aside I wonder if you could make a digital piano sound better than a real one by correcting for that? And also perhaps auto tuning to the key the music is in, in the manner that a singer will do automatically. So far the digital pianos I've heard don't sound as good as a decent concert grand.
auiya 8y ago
There are also guitars which take a tempered approach to tuning, and typically require a multi-scale fitment of bridge and nut. The Buzz Feiten system [1] is the first I can recall, although now many guitar manufacturers are building guitars with each string using a different scale and fanned fretboards [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Feiten#Buzz_Feiten_tuning_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Feiten#Buzz_Feiten_tuni... [2] https://images.guitarguitar.co.uk/large/130/170316308819006f.jpg https://images.guitarguitar.co.uk/large/130/170316308819006f...

naringas 8y ago

Indeed, if one tuned a piano like the article describes it wouldn't sound good. As far as I undesrtand it has to do with the thickness (i.e. the real world physicallity) of the lower octave strings. The strings are not trully one-dimensional. this makes their timbre deviate from the ideal harmonic series. This is specially true for the thicker strings of the lower notes. If we could make a piano using very thin strings we could get away with a less stretched tuning.

radiowave 8y ago
Making the strings (and therefore the piano) longer helps, hence the size of concert grand pianos.
richardhod 8y ago
Indeed it's generally true for thicker strings at all pitches, though perhaps more so for lower ones for this case. The longer the strings, the better the sound in general, too, for related stiffness-timbre reasons. Even a tall upright you can tell can sound better than any short upright, and Grand pianos take this to greater extremes of length.

tim333 8y ago

That came up on HN 39 days ago "Why are pianos traditionally tuned “out of tune” at the extremes?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18988774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18988774 As an aside I wonder if you could make a digital piano sound better than a real one by correcting for that? And also perhaps auto tuning to the key the music is in, in the manner that a singer will do automatically. So far the digital pianos I've heard don't sound as good as a decent concert grand.

auiya 8y ago

There are also guitars which take a tempered approach to tuning, and typically require a multi-scale fitment of bridge and nut. The Buzz Feiten system [1] is the first I can recall, although now many guitar manufacturers are building guitars with each string using a different scale and fanned fretboards [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Feiten#Buzz_Feiten_tuning_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Feiten#Buzz_Feiten_tuni... [2] https://images.guitarguitar.co.uk/large/130/170316308819006f.jpg https://images.guitarguitar.co.uk/large/130/170316308819006f...