church pianos that drop pitch

[Zen Reinhardt]

Let me tell you ---

It's incredible what a heating system can do to a piano in a very short
space of time.  A few years ago I was the house technician for a small
theatre (Gem) in Detroit.  I could always tell when the heating system was
turned on for the first time each fall, because the piano would go haywire
(flat, out of tune, etc.) inside of a few days after a long summer of
incredible stability.

Currently I have in my client base a rental Yamaha C3 I occassionally have
the opportunity to tune every few days.  My, how that piano gets around on
its one-night stands in public places all over metro Detroit.  Usually it's
a quick matter to get it ready for its performance at any given job-site,
but today was a different story.  It was horribly out of tune, and the
regulation was out of sorts.  The reason was obvious -- it was parked
directly under a large hot-air vent in the function hall, and this was the
first time it has had to put up with this abuse this fall.  Thank goodness
it will be moving on in a couple of days.

If these stories are anything to go by, it simply means that it doesn't
take much in the name of climate control to drive a piano out of tune in a
very short period of time.  The physical business of moving the piano
(lifting it on/off a platform) usually has very little impact on the
stability of the tuning.

ZR!  RPT
Ann Arbor  MI
diskladame@provide.net



----------
> From: Edward Carwithen <musicman@eoni.com>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: church pianos that drop pitch
> Date: Sunday, October 26, 1997 12:08 PM
> 
> In response to an earlier post that mentions pianos that dropped pitch,
> especially after 8 tunings...
>   I have a piano in a church that I have tuned for several years quite
> successfully, but they recently moved to a new location.  I tuned the
piano
> after the move, and received a call three months later to do it again. 
The
> piano was about 8 cents flat, and very out of tune.  The only reason I
can
> find for the instability is that the building is not heated or air
> conditioned, and the temp in the sanctuary varied from stifling to chilly
> during the week.  
>   They also move the piano "carefully" (they tell me) off of the raised
> platform for weddings (about a six inch step).  They tell me they have
> about 8 guys to lift it carefully up and down.  That could cause some
> slippage, but not 8 cents in 3 months, could it?????
> Ed Carwithen
> Oregon