Drifting Unisons

[Ron Nossaman]

>it seems that the clear patterns emerge when there has been a large and 
>consistent movement of humidity in one direction or other. When humidity 
>has been unsettled, or has generally gone one way, but is now in the 
>process of moving in another, all bets are off - haywire, patternless, 
>is the best way to describe the results.

* That's why I think friction at the bridge pins, and the resulting
reluctance of the string to render through is a major player here.
Otherwise, the shorter strings would move farther than the longer strings
with any change in bridge height. A major humidity drop should reverse the
patterns as compared to a major rise. I don't think you indicated what you
find when the humidity is high and you have to drop pitch, did you? Are the
patterns reversed?

Yesterday, I noted that the right string (shortest) of unisons in verticals
was lowest on the ones I had to pull up to pitch, and too close to be
conclusive on those that were pretty close to pitch. The one grand I did
was on pitch and didn't give me anything for comparison. I have been aware
for a long time that the unisons go out in this pattern with big humidity
swings, but I hadn't noticed pattern reversals between grands and
verticals. Probably too busy mentally going somewhere else to avoid having
to attend the tuning process (ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz). I'll try to pay closer
attention as the season turns and see if an AHA happens to further cloud
the investigation. This is interesting, and we may pin a plausible cause
and effect relationship on it yet. If not, we're at least taking up
valuable  space and making thinking noises, so it's not altogether wasted.



Ron N