<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; = charset=Windows-1252"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2600.0" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY> <DIV>Thanks for all of the input on string breakage.  Fred, I am thinking about = recent Yamaha P-202's and Steinway uprights where my unisons were ruined in the = treble from going sharp.  I do have a hard test blow.  I always = assumed, and was told, it was flagpoling and capo bearing, etc.   I'll be = looking at that, especially on these pianos.  Thanks to = all.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> Lance Lafargue, RPT Mandeville, LA New Orleans = Chapter, PTG lancelafargue@bellsouth.net 985.72P.IANO = </DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left>-----Original Message----- From: = caut-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces@ptg.org]On Behalf Of Fred S. = Sturm Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 3:27 PM To: College and = University Technicians Subject: Re: String breakage, drifting sharp </DIV>    When I first got the = "sharp test blow" religion, maybe 15 years ago, I tried it out on a concert grand. = Boy, was I impressed by how far those high treble notes were falling. I was = sure that I had always left the piano _way_ unstable. Got done with the = tuning and checked it out, and was shocked to find that the top two octaves had = drifted considerably sharp, and the unisons I had sweated so much over were = gone, too.     More recently, since using an ETD, I have often = noted, mostly in the top half octave, that notes will be consistently a = couple cents sharp. A few not so terribly hard blows and they come right down to = pitch. Then, the day after or a week after or whenever I next see the piano, = I find the same phenomenon.     Stability is a very = amorphous thing. Of course, it depends a lot on how much friction there is in = the capo (or often between string and felt in the agraffe section). I don't = think it's possible to leave a piano in such a stable tuning condition that = "savagely hard" playing won't have an effect. Not that I don't keep trying. = Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico Mark Cramer wrote: >snip< <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE="CITE">BTW, after the tendonitis, I used a = striker for a while, still with a good blow. Though easier on the body parts, but = found the capo sections would tend to drift sharp, and this is a = discussion in itself.>snip<Mark Cramer,Brandon = University</BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>