rehearsal room to theatre stage

[Joe And Penny Goss]

Hi Tom,
 Are they using the fog machine in the production?
Joe Goss
imatunr@srvinet.com
www.mothergoosetools.com
----- Original Message -----
From: <Tvak@aol.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2003 6:52 AM
Subject: rehearsal room to theatre stage


> Piano in question: Yamaha P2.  This piano has been in the rehearsal room
at a
> local theater for 15 years and I've been tuning it for about 5 years.
This
> past week it was moved down to the theater stage for a production where it
> will be used as the performance piano in the onstage band.
>
> I am shocked at how much this has changed the piano.  Suddenly the strings
> don't render easily; in fact, one broke, not at the becket but at the
> pressure bar.  My tuning efforts yesterday were very difficult as the
string
> would stay, stay, stay, and then with one tiny movement of the pin, shoot
way
> sharp, past the target.
>
> In addition, the tone is strange on some strings.  D5, D#5, and E5 for
> instance, sound as if there are two sizes of strings on the same unison.
> There is a metallic-ness to the tone and the unisons don't sound
pure---none
> of the strings in these unisons have any false beats, but together they
> sound...well...funky.  This was certainly not apparent in the rehearsal
room.
>
> In addition, true false beats have also appeared throughout octaves 6 and
7.
> (Is that an oxymoron: "true false" beats?)
>
> None of this was the case when the piano was in the rehearsal room.  The
> humidity is higher in the theater; I measured it at 47%.  (I believe the
> humidity in the rehearsal room was closer to 30%.)  I'm sure that the
> temperature on stage varies greatly, from performance-hot, to the 65
degrees
> that it was when I tuned it yesterday.
>
> So, today, I'll go in and CLP the strings at the pressure bar, seat the
> strings to the bridge in the treble, and re-tune.
>
> I'm sure that the humidity must be the culprit behind the changes I've
seen,
> but why/how would it change the timbre on those notes?  Why the difficulty
> rendering the strings?  (Rust couldn't form in 47% humidity in one
> week...could it?)
>
> Tom S
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