Hello all,  This topic has fascinated me for many years and I am still
non the wiser.  In our past shop, I have played possibly 5000 pianos or
even more over the years.  I liked some and I hated others.  All were
usually out of tune when they came in, and they left the shop in-tune.

Some came in (out-of-tune) and they sounded absolutely magical to me.
They were a pleasure to play and I loved them.  I took one home, an
R.S. Howard player piano, and kept it for a few years as-is, un-tuned.
I eventually sold it to the next guy who also loved it as-is.

In our shop, once the pianos were brought to pitch and then tuned, the
magic was gone and they sounded normal.  Our tuners never understood
what I meant and I guess they thought I was crazy -- maybe I am...
It was the magic of that special sort of sound -- nice but not overdone,
and actually not really out of tune as such.  I don't know how to
describe it; it's sort of like this:

  http://www.youtube.com/user/zukology#p/u/18/O4sOzE-E3-w 
  (Ignore the faulty player)

So how can one accomplish this on purpose?  I have never managed and
none of the tuners I have known could either.

Also, how was it possible that Fats Domino's piano always sounded like
it did?  I believe he prepared it himself before a gig?  He only had to
play two or three chords/notes and from the sound it was obvious that
it was Fats Domino and his piano.  Can that be accomplished by tuning
as well?

Who knows the piano tuning secret?  So many questions...

Regards,
Bernt Damm
Sydney

 [ The piano of the YouTube video sounds to me like the quintessential
 [ "saloon piano", with out-of-tune unisons and rather hard hammers.
 [ I wouldn't want to play a concert of classical music on this piano,
 [ but it surely is fun in a noisy bar-room!  -- Robbie