[CAUT] Reading low humidity (was seasonal SB failure)

[Greg Newell]

Fred,
         I appreciate your take on all of this. 
(Yours' too Ron). Does this mean that you float 
pitch in your university environment?

Greg Newell


At 07:53 PM 3/3/2006, you wrote:
>On 3/3/06 3:52 PM, "Greg Newell" <gnewell at ameritech.net> wrote:
>
> >        I gain from this that wood reacts very
> > quickly on the intake and very slowly on the
> > release. Since this is the case I still wonder
> > how useful or accurate your readings and
> > subsequent assumptions from RH are. You are very
> > specific in your second paragraph about what you
> > expect to face when dealing with your concert
> > grand. While I'm sure that will be useful
> > information to you I wonder how this relates to
> > the real world environment in which we find many
> > of our private customers pianos. I do some
> > concert work but not on the scale or frequency
> > with which you obviously do. This is a CAUT forum
> > and your info can be quite useful in that realm.
> > I guess I was just hoping to port it over to the rest of the world too.
> >
> > best,
> > Greg
>Hi Greg,
>     I gave a very specific example to show very specific practicality. In
>private homes, I rarely have nearly as much intimate knowledge of conditions
>from day to day, or even from month to month. Still, I record RH every
>service, so over time I am able to track it to a limited extent, with
>seasonal fluctuations if they tune other than the same time every year. This
>allows me to advise them on how to achieve better tuning stability if that
>is an issue, and to warn them of possible dangers of soundboard cracks and
>the like if conditions warrant. It also allows me to explain in advance what
>they might expect seasonally, for instance if they had the piano tuned at
>the height of RH in late summer/early fall.
>     Over time, I have learned what a number of specific models of pianos do
>seasonally in terms of tuning change, and expect and anticipate those
>changes. It makes my life feel a little less random, I suppose. Changes are
>accentuated in the university environment, with rapid air exchange HVAC
>systems. When I first started at my university, in August at the peak of RH,
>I was amazed at how sharp my predecessor had kept the pianos. Then I was
>dismayed at how flat they had got by October. That was 20 years ago. I have
>been obsessing about RH ever since, simply because it is the one factor I
>can read and track, which tells me where I was and where I can expect to be
>tomorrow. I still have a lot to learn about it.
>Regards,
>Fred Sturm
>University of New Mexico
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives

Greg Newell
Greg's piano Forté
mailto:gnewell at ameritech.net