Floating pitch -- & ear plugs

[Otto Keyes]

Greg,

Go ahead & beat on me.  I'm a big boy.

However, I should qualify my 40 cent statement (by the way, what happened to
the cent symbol on these keyboards?).  In August I would beat my brains out
knocking the pitch down 20 cts to 440, only to go back after the heat was on
for a bit & find them 20 cts flat & in need of a pitch raise.   Soundboard
movement & bridge placement, etc., etc. dictated where the most pitch change
would be, so we're not talking about an overall pitch change of 40 cts.  I
estimate the float to be in the 6-10 ct range, as my geriatric mind recalls
these events of some 25 years past.  At that point in history, damp chasers
were not particularly smart either.

Mark, your point about rocking the boat is well taken.  Moving the wire
constantly across the bearings makes your nice, clean termination point a
ditch in the string, resulting in wow-wows in the tuning, & pretty soon the
piano is a bow-wow.  Stand still in the middle & both boat & pitch will
stabilize.

Again, consider location.  Some locations are appropriate to float the
pitch, others are verboten.  Damp chaser systems in the outhouses in the
woods at the Banff Centre that we called practice huts were a real life
saver.  However, the heating systems were changed about the same time, so
that was a significant factor as well.

Believe me, I am quite loathe to rock the boat.....except when it can
accomplish something positive (most of the time).  However, it can be
interesting to discover the regurgitations that result from said boat
rocking.......but I digress.  Get your sailboat out, Mark.  The lake ain't
frozen yet!

Otto

Piano Technician
University of Idaho
208-885-7918
----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Newell" <gnewell@ameritech.net>
To: <caut@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 2:29 PM
Subject: Re: Floating pitch -- & ear plugs


> Otto,
>          First I want to make clear that I'm responding to the thread in
> general and not just your post. I clearly understand why those who do,
> float pitch. That having been said I would try all I could to not do it. I
> can forsee a situation where someone knows the piano has "just been tuned"
> and yet another instrumentalist who just happens to have good pitch memory
> (Perfect Pitch) will remark to his or her group that the piano is flat.
> perhaps even significantly. For those who do float pitch why is it that
you
> can't simply explain to whatever institution that the temperature and
> humidity fluctuations are simply too great and that Dampp Chasers must be
> installed to maintain anything resembling correct and stable pitch? Money
> is always an issue but if we always give them a way out will they not
> always take it? My two cents.
>
> Greg Newell