Today I was called to service a nice Yamaha GH1 grand. I had tuned it last June. the lady said it had gone back out of tune. Upon investigation I found that the only badly out of tune notes were from B3 up to the plate stut near G5. They were ALL about 75c flat. Pins were tight, no cracked block, bridge was firmly fastened. The only thing that I could see wrong was..... All of the hammers for the out of tune notes had a brown stain that started at the top (not striking surface) and went back about 3/4". If you looked inside the piano from above past the dampers and down to the hammers, you would find that the stain was in the same vertical plane as the back of the damper. When I lifted the dampers, on the out of tune strings, I found that the strings where the damper touched were black. This black was not under the front section of a two felt damper only the back...and it would not rub off. These conditions did not exist when I tuned the instrument last June The lady said the piano lid was always closed and nobody had spilled anything in the piano and there were no animals in the house. The house is air conditioned and although we had some high humidity here last summer, I cannot imagine what caused the stian on the stings and hammers nor why only about 2 octaves in the middle was so grossly out of tune when the rest of piano was only 2-3 cents flat...even the high treble. Waiting with baited breath By the Bye....Happy Holidays to all Dick Day Marshall MI
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