•One can tune a pipe organ from an electronic tuner very well if it is done right. I do it all the time. Use no stretch in any pipe organ. You may stretch the bass of a Theater organ if you like. I usually do not, however. I tuned pianos from the fork for 10 years before I tuned organs for customers...

•In MMD 981110 Alan Fox enquired about using an electronic tuning aid for help with tuning musical box combs. > I'd like to receive recommendations for a good ETA that can be > used for tuning the comb of a music box. Any music box restorers > or hobby types out there who have successfully utilized ...

•We are in the process of fine tuning an Orchestrone reed crank organ. Is there any way to straighten the reeds without altering their pitch? If not, are the reeds available for sale anywhere? Anyone have ideas on how to test the tone of the reeds when repairing or replacing? Pat Whitlock ...

•Pat Whitlock wrote in 000111 MMD: > Is there any way to straighten reeds without altering their pitch? While I am far from expert in such matters, I have to wonder exactly what you're doing here. According to my reading on the subject, reeds are frequently slightly twisted in order to facilitate th...

•There is an entire chapter in my book, "The American Reed Organ and the Harmonium," devoted to tuning reeds. If they have a gentle curve, that is from voicing, which gives the reeds a better tone. If one reed is severely bent, more than the others, it is damaged. You can try to bend it back. Do not...

•In response to the posting from Larry Smith wrote in 000112 MMD. This is our first attempt at repairing a crank organ, so we know very little about it. We are learning, as we go. We have several reeds that are not working, so in our fine tuning, we are trying to fix this problem. After I posted my ...

•When it rains, it pours. I am afraid I have another serious piano problem cropping up. I have a old 1921 Foster in the piano room. It's not been restored but still plays. I often use it to audition our new rolls. I tuned it last Fall, and the pins were much tighter than average, and it stayed up to...

•I feel like a real idiot. Last week I wrote to MMD about some of the unisons on one of my pianos that kept falling. Yesterday, I discovered that several pianos around the shop had a few unisons badly out of tune, always in the middle of the piano, including a Foster that had recently been restrung...

•Dear MMd's, A friend of mine, who has no e-mail connection, wants to tune his Triola mechanical zither. The usual literature (Bowers, etc.) does not give that information, although I remember an article was written on this instrument in an association's Journal, but I cannot find the reference agai...

•Y'know those Christmas bell displays that have a little animated teddy bear or Santa or something clanging each little bell? They're electronically programmed to play Christmas carols, though it would be fun to try hacking the little CPU to see if less reverent tunes could be produced. Anyway, I wa...

•Tune the birdcage action by removing the whole overdamper assembly, birdcage and all. Tune in the normal way but wear gloves so you can damp the strings yourself as you tune. If the strings are all rusty or black don't bother with the gloves. But mine are usually shiny new strings and they will tur...

•Tuning overdamper pianos is no problem at all, using a few simple techniques. The temperament strip is inserted below the hammer strike line after the action is tipped back to get access. Tuning the unisons later is done by inserting a Papps mute between the damper wires, also below the hammers. Yo...

•Greetings, I have recently downloaded a nifty piano tuning program that I will soon be using to tune my player. I have previously used a Korg electronic tuner which had only a few options for temperament, one of which was something like "standard old piano", etc. The PC tuner (Tune Lab 97) has abou...

•In MMD 001211 Kevin McElhone asked for the tuning scale of the Aristonette. Here it is: d, e, a, h, cis', d, e, fis, gis, a, h, cis'', d, dis, e, fis, g, gis, a One has to keep in mind that the absolute pitch may be different on each individual instrument. One instrument which I have in my collecti...

•[ originally published in Mechanical Music Digest 96.12.22 ] Following is the description of the tuning procedure for a Style 150 band organ taken from a manual (or pamphlet -- 4 pages) entitled "Directions for the Operation of the Military Band Organ" by the Wurlitzer Co. - - - - "INSTRUCTIONS FOR...

•When I acquired my basket-case (a pile of parts) small organ, believed to have been home built by a Dutch hobbyist, it included three and one-half books of music, plus two short tuning books. Just as John Kadlec described, they have the notes going up the scale, with octaves (but no other intervals...

•John Kadlec wrote in 010221 MMDigest: > Included with the organ was a small book which plays all notes of > the scale in sequence, and then plays various octaves and intervals. This book is for tuning and other diagnostic purposes much like a player piano test roll. I have towed my 81-key Wilhelm B...

•I recently had a chance to browse the 1991 tome by Owen H. Jorgensen on piano tunings, entitled "TUNING - Containing The Perfection of Eighteenth-Century Temperament, The Lost Art of Nineteenth-Century Temperament and the Science of Equal Temperament, Complete With Instructions for Aural and Electr...

•Does anyone out there know what temperament the Tangley company originally used in the tuning of their Calliope? I am in the final stages of building a set of whistles. I have initially tuned the whistles using a electronic tuning meter in equal temperament and while the result is acceptable, I get...

•Bill Mote asked, "Does anyone out there know what temperament the Tangley company originally used in the tuning of their Calliope?" I tune mine with a Conn StroboConn tuner. That has proved to be satisfactory. Hal Davis