harpsichord and piano forte help

[Avery Todd]

Wim,

Welcome to the world of University work! :-) Others have answered your
harpsichord question so I have just one comment. Make sure your
harpsichord isn't one that has TWO      pitch levels in addition to the
A-440 position. We have one but at the time we got it, I'd never
heard of this. Stupidly, I broke several strings trying to "tune"
the thing before I realized this. :-( I try to tune ours every
week or two, even when they're not being used for concerts. Or at
least, go in and check the pitch levels.

Avery

At 03:07 PM 09/13/01 -0400, you wrote:
>List
>
>I know there are Internet pages for harpsichord and piano forte technicians,
>but I just need a little help from some of you who work on these things.
>
>I have two harpsichords and one pianoforte at the university. Last week I
>tuned both harpsichords, and yesterday I tuned the pianoforte. There were two
>things I found on all three things. One was that they were anywhere from 25
>or 50 cents high. (in fact, one harpsichord was almost 3 steps high). When I
>talked to one of the professors about this he said it was the high
>temperature in the rooms that cause them to be so high. I found the
>temperature in the rooms to be at 70 degrees. The air conditioning in this
>building is pretty good. All the rooms have their own individual controls,
>and when I go there in mid August, all the room were "cool." None were "hot
>and humid"
>
>The other thing I noticed was that all of them had about 4 or 5 broken
>strings, mostly in the lower end. Now, I don't play the piano, much less the
>harpsichord, and I have only tuned one other pianoforte, but I can't imagine
>harpsichord or pianoforte strings breaking because of hard playing. Am I
>right or wrong on this?
>
>I suspect that the harpsichord professor had tried to tune these things and
>wound up tuning them very high. Am I right in that conclusion? Or can strings
>break because of hard playing, and will the pitch go up to 50 cents high
>because of an increase in temperature of perhaps 5 degrees?
>
>Another quick question about the pianoforte. I took the action out, because
>some of the notes weren't working, and saw a small block of wood on each key,
>between the balance rail and the back of the key. The top of the block of
>wood was flared. I could not see what this block of wood is there for. I
>looks like it should have a piece of felt on it, like the hammer rest block
>on a Steinway, but there was no sign of felt anywhere. Also, the blocks of
>wood didn't line up directly under the hammer shank. Any one with an idea of
>what the block of wood is for?
>
>Wim