Here is what Mr. Maitland said in his little booklet: First the tuner needs to know that the piano is in good enough condition to withstand the increase of tension. He goes through the various details in determining this. For instance, all plate screws and bolts need to be tightened, plate, bridges and soundboard inspected, pinblock checked out, and strings evaluated. A good light is essential to make these determinations.
He then goes into detail about correcting faults you may have found. I will just touch on them here.
Iron Plate:
Finding a crack or break, do not attempt to raise pitch.
Pin Block:
If a 3/4 plate, the pinblock must have screws or bolts running through to the stanchions in the back. If no bolts are present, then install them. Check for loose tuning pins, and repair ones that are. If the pin block is split, do not attempt to raise. If a full plate, just make sure all bolts are tight.
Bridges:
If split across the pin holes, repair first, or do not attempt to raise pitch. Take notice that the upper bass bridge (if wood) is screwed down, also that the bridges are screwed tightly to the sound board. If bridges are loose from the sound board, repair first.
Sound Board:
As long as the ribs are tight to the sound board, cracks are not a concern when raising pitch. But if they are loose, they must be repaired first, to avoid a rattle. He does not recommend shimming whatsoever. I quote one sentence from this section: "Anyhow, a cracked sound board is only nature's way of correcting the oversight of the piano maker who persists in making and putting in sound boards with no allowance for expansion and contraction caused by swelling and drying out of moisture."
Now he gets to the pitch raise itself. He advises getting the pitch up "against the bracing of the plate" as quickly as possible.
His method for a greater than 1/8th of a tone pitch raise:
1/8th of a tone in his parlance is about 10 to 15 cents in ours. First determine how much flatter or sharper one section is as compared to another by comparing octaves. That is, how does the bass section compare in pitch to the lower treble, mid range, and upper treble sections? He does not care to be precise in this, only to have a general idea as expressed in fractions of a tone, thus he says 1/8th of a tone, or 1/4 of a tone, or 1/2 of a tone, etc.
He begins with the lowest note on the piano, usually A0. To give you an idea of what his method is, he gives an example that the bass section is 1/2 tone flat (1/2 step - me):
Bring the lowest A "up one-half tone to Bb, making the A about 3 beats sharp of its perfect unison, Bb. Then tune Bb up to B natural, remembering to have it 2 or 3 waves sharp the same as you tuned the A," following this pattern until one octave has been tuned. Further quoting, "Now compare your upper A with the lowest A, the octave below. If your upper A is a few beats sharp, you are not far out of the way. Now, having your lowest 12 notes of the piano up to the proper pitch, use these 12 notes as your foundation, and tune up the chromatic scale in octaves clear up to the top...remembering to keep your upper notes tuned 2 or 3 waves on the sharp side."
"Accurate work by the above process is obtained by careful comparison rather than by fixed rule."
He then goes on to explain how the experienced tuner fudges this way and that, according to the piano and how sharp or flat each section is to each other, and how the piano is reacting as the work progresses.
How to mute and listen when raising pitch:
"It is perhaps best for even the experienced tuner to mute the strings in the usual way (using two rubber or felt mutes - me) until he is perfectly familiar with the process."
He then describes his way of muting by the use of his fore finger of the right hand ( or the hand which he uses to manipulate the tuning lever - me ). This adds speed to the process. When you get to the double strings and play the octave, tune one of the strings until you think it's right (as both are sounding), then check again by playing the octave, but this time muting one string with your finger, changing the pitch if necessary. Continue on in this way, and when you get to the three string unisons, mute two strings with you finger and thumb. However, "By practice a tuner can learn to easily tune one of the three strings to the octave even while the other two are sounding," using the finger to mute to test as needed.
OK, if the pitch raise is not a 1/2 step, but is more than 1/8th, how do you determine how much to over pull? This is what he says: "Well, suppose it is 1/4 of a tone. Use the lowest 12 notes on your piano, and if the bass is to come up 1/4 of a tone, just proportion it and pull just 1/2 as much as you did for the 1/2 tone, or, if slightly less than 1/4, yet more than 1/8th, proportion it the same way. Make your pull up just a little less than 1/4, using that nice judgement that every experienced tuner should have. (emphasis mine) Aren't we glad for the electronic tuning devices available to us? But this is how they used to have to do this. And if you're ever caught without a machine, this might be good to know.
Further advice:
- "Strike each key hard 2 or 3 times after raising (or lowering) pitch", and before the fine tuning.
- "Do not pull more than 1/2 tone at once."
- "We find that we can raise a piano 1/2 tone usually without hurrying and fine tune in 2 hours."
- "When you raise pitch starting at A0, you are putting the pressure right against the bracing at once, where it belongs. Hence, when your piano is up by this method, it stays
If you think string breakage will be a problem, "turn your tuning pin back just enough to take the sharp bend out of the wire at the pin. Then give a quick turn upward to raise the pitch of the string..." . If strings continue to break after trying that process, "...turn back your tuning pin very slightly as before, then take a reed hook (or maybe a string hook - me), or other instrument, with which you can get a good hold of the string close to the tuning pin, catch the string close to the tuning pin with your reed hook, pull the string hard away from the tuning pin with the reed hook at the same time that you turn the tuning pin with your tuning hammer. Of course, you cannot sound your note while performing this operation...But if you should get the string a little too high by this method, it will not break when getting to proper pitch." If these methods fail, restringing "or let them severely alone" are your only other options.
Parting words from George Maitland:
"Finally, we can only say that we have used this method, which we have tried to make plain, for many years, and have always found it perfectly satisfactory."
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