A new book, "The Art of Piano Tuning," by Dan Levitan, is a complete
guide to the craft of piano tuning, covering both its aural and manual
aspects.  At the heart of each of the book's two parts, "The Tuner's
Ear" and "The Tuner's Hand," is an essay explaining in detail the
standard practices of piano tuning in terms of their underlying
acoustics and mechanics.  Supplemental readings expand on the essays
and provide a wealth of practical information and tips.  (Dan teaches
tuning by ear.)

Soon after I started tuning I was fortunate to take an hour tutoring
from Dan Levitan; he corrected my "hammer technique," "pin and string
setting."  Dan told me he was having pains in his fingers at the time
from tuning so many pianos.  He was using a karate chop temporarily to
set the string, so his fingers could heal.

The piano hammer glued into a dowel would not work, because Dan is an
aural tuner and needs to check his work by playing various intervals.
I do basic aural checks so, it wouldn't work for me either.  My fingers
are thin, I can combine my thumb, middle finger and index finger to
strike the key, which spreads out the impact.

I found out early on that comparing beat rate speeds of barely audible
short sustaining high pitched partials was just _not_ my thing.  The
electronic devices were very good and improving.  I think I made the
right choice for me.  I use a pocket computer.  It does a decent to
excellent job figuring out the "stretch" of a piano depending on how
well the piano is "scaled."  I do need my ear more for those 65-key
Pianolas.

I have a tuning library with 100 great aural tunings for particular
pianos stored inside.  I can adjust the stretch for someone's
particular "taste."  Apple bought a license to sell the Cybertuner
software (I use) as an app for MAC mobile devices like iPhone.  It's
due to come out any day now.  I hear good things about the Accu-Tuner,
TuneLab and Verituner as well.

A "good tuning job" is "solid" unisons and reference notes set well,
good sounding octaves, double octaves, chords, arpeggios and other
intervals however it is achieved.  I may "suck up the ego" and ask
Dan or an expert like him if they would critique my work again.

Bill Maguire