[pianotech] Experiences of Temperature on Tuning Stability Inquiry...

[Paul T Williams]

Never try to tune a piano when brought from inside to direct sunlight! 
You'll pull your hair out, the piano will go flat in 5 minutes, and never 
stabilize.   DAMHIK!!  Temp swings inside a home or building aren't a 
drastic, but...same thing.  Whatever you do at 70 degrees will change if 
the room moves to 60 or 80.  Mild temps swings will do the same, but take 
longer. 

Don't go into a cold church when they want to tune "to the organ" (another 
nightmare as you won't know what temperament it's in and neither will the 
office people).  Organs will go sharp as they're played on Sunday, and the 
room will change in temp and humidity as well.

BTW: Welcome to the PTG.  Good luck on your new adventure!

Paul




From:
Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net>
To:
pianotech at ptg.org
Date:
05/09/2011 01:37 PM
Subject:
Re: [pianotech] Experiences of Temperature on Tuning    Stability 
Inquiry...



On 5/9/2011 10:17 AM, Zachary LaMotte wrote:
> Dear Fellow Mailing-List Members-
>
> I am Zach LaMotte (current student at CSPT and newly applied associate
> member for the PTG!).  After extensive research on past discussions in
> the forums, I have found a lack of talk on the effect of temperature on
> tuning stability.  I am well-read on the impact humidity plays on the 
piano.

This comes up a couple of times a year, and we've been over it many 
times. String pitch shifts immediately with temperature change. The wire 
elongates as it warms up, shortens as it cools, changing tension and 
therefore pitch. Eventually, the plate will catch up and the piano will 
be pretty close to the state of tune it was in before the temperature 
shift. Tuning with furnace or A/C outflow blowing in the piano, or the 
sun shining in on the strings through the clouds intermittently, means 
the pitch will drift up and down as the unit (or sunshine) cycles, 
throughout the tuning. None of this has anything to do with humidity, as 
humidity induced tuning fluctuations typically take days, not minutes. 
That's pretty much it.

Ron N


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