A443

[Vanderhoofven]

Dear John,

Don't you just hate Dear John letters?  :-)

Today I tuned one of the Steinway D's for a recital.  I was lucky that the
piano had only gone sharp up to A-443 over the summer (not tuned in about 3
months), considering that the humidity control is very poor in the small
recital hall.  In previous years, I have measured the pitch of this piano
up to A-446 or A-447, due to extremely high humidity.  It took 2-1/2 hours
to wrestle with the piano to do a nice tuning at A-440 (A-440 was the
request of the woodwind instructor), and another hour for adjusting dampers.

In my small amount of experience, the piano can take a much higher pitch
than A-440 because it is very well built.  But... the piano will fight you
as you bring the piano up to A-443, and then once you have struggled to do
a nice tuning and gotten the piano solidly in tune, the piano will fight
you again as you lower the piano back to A-440 after the concert.

Make sure you get paid well for this.

Sincerely,
David A. Vanderhoofven, RPT
Missouri Southern State College
Joplin, Missouri

P.S.  I was driving to an out of town appointment on Wednesday morning,
September 15, 1999, and heard a great piano on the radio.  It was on
Performance Today, on NPR, and the pianist in the studio played a Waltz and
2 Nocturnes by Chopin.  Whoever tuned that piano did an excellent job and
should be recognized for it.  Beautiful!


At 07:17 PM 09/13/1999 , you wrote:
>The Vienna Chamber Orchestra is playing here next month and they have
>asked that the piano be tuned to A443.  No problem, although I would
>rather not.  But I was just wondering,... How high can we safely take the
>pitch of a Steinway D?
>
>John Chapman, RPT