Tuning

Well, I finally got round to tuning. It took quite a while to sort it out but when I sussed how to do it it was straightforward enough. The back rank of violins are fixed length and not tuneable but the meter showed that they are sufficiently in tune with themselves not to warrant major surgery. First time I checked they were perfectly at A440. I guess it was luck that I picked the right day next day with a change in the weather, they were flat.

Never mind, just put the meter away and do it by ear. A few years working in piano restoration helped. So, tune the front rank of stopped flutes to the violins. Easy - once I’d freed the stoppers so that they would actually slide. They need to be tight enough not to move with the normal travellings of the organ but not so tight they need more than a good grip with the fingers. Most were OK but a few were so tight it took a vice and “mole” grips (with rubber pads to avoid marking the wood). Refit the pipes that had to come out for “easing” push them back with a wipe of Vaseline to seal. One or two were a bit slack but a slip of newspaper between the leather and wood was enough to make a considerable difference.

Ready to tune. Surprisingly it was much easier to hear the “beat” on an organ pipe than it was on a piano so it didn’t take long. Just move the stopper till the “beat” stops. If in doubt I deliberately eased the stopper out till it was definitely flat then back in till the “beat” stops. That’s 22 pipes in tune, 11 violins and 11 flutes. Now the celeste. I think it’s more common to tune the celeste slightly sharp but on Rosie it was hard to tell whether it was sharp or flat. Some were one, some the other they were so far out so I went for sharper. Tune the celeste to the flutes them deliberately sharpen it a bit till there’s a noticeable “beat” that sounds pleasant to the ear. Count the “beats” and tune the other celeste pipes to the same speed of “beat”. That’s 33 pipes done, just the11 melody/ bass pipes to go.

I don’t have a tuning roll but on Rosie’s pressure box system a strip of masking take over the holes on the tracker bar seals all but the holes you want to sound one note at a time. The lower pipes don’t have a violin to tune them to so had the be tuned to the octave (or two ) above. Just uncover two holes at a time to sound the already tuned flute to the lower tone. The “beat" is just as obvious. For the two bass note with two pipes each (one an octave lower to give depth to the bass) cover the mouth of the deeper pipe, tune to higher one to the octave higher then uncover the lower one and tune the two bass pipes to each other.

Job done and sounding a lot better thought I think the celeste is less than perfect. Might try tuning the a few beats lower to see if it gives a more mellow tone. Good enough for the weekend though.