[CAUT] interesting alternative tuning experience

[Dan Reed]

Hey Alan,

How long has the piano been at its current location? ( Thinking in 
terms of the moisture content of the board) If the board was very dry, 
for years, it may go sharp regardless of where you tune it.... as the 
board takes on H2o.

Dan
On Dec 16, 2008, at 6:26 PM, reggaepass at aol.com wrote:

> List,
>
> I just had my second go-around at trying to get a piano that had been 
> tuned in an unusual way for a long time back to "normal".  It was in a 
> tuning that had some notes near normal tension, others up to a 
> quarter-tone flat, and still others as far sharp(!).  In addition, the 
> piano had been in that tuning for the past eight years (most of them 
> in Germany--it is a 1904 Schwechten grand with a bridge design I've 
> not seen before).  
>
> On my first visit to start the long journey home to equal temperament 
> at A=440, I started by doing a pass using the pitch-change function on 
> an Accutuner (which determines off-sets for each note independently of 
> what came before, and I measured for every note).  That got it close 
> enough to follow immediately with a straight machine tuning (with 
> recalculated FAC), unisons-as-you-go from A0 to C8.  The piano had 
> been vastly transformed, although I cautioned that there were no 
> guarantees how long it would sound in tune. 
>
> The owner reported that the piano started going out of tune within 
> weeks of the last servicing.  When I returned for a follow-up visit 
> three and a half months later, I was unprepared for what I 
> encountered.  Some notes, the ones that had been sharp, had crept back 
> up in pitch, many nearly 100% (!!) of the way back up to where they 
> had been for those eight long years.
>
> I've done many alternate tunings, almost always lowering pitch and 
> never raising individual notes more than 10 cents or so.  But after a 
> pitch-raise and a tuning or two, things have always returned to normal 
> in a rather predictable way.  I have never tuned notes 50 cents sharp 
> nor have I ever left an alternative tuning on a piano for more than a 
> few weeks at a shot.  (Last week we tuned a concert grand to select 
> instruments from one of our Balinese gamelans, but the piano spent 
> less than a week from the first "Balinese" tuning to the retuning to 
> ET @440.) 
>
> Has anyone else out there had any experience with notes and/or entire 
> pianos being tuned sharp for prolonged periods of time?  If so, did 
> you observe the same kind of behavior upon retuning?  What would be 
> the most efficient way to get it back to "normal"?
>
> Thanks & Happy Holidays,
>
> Alan Eder
>
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