Patrick, In the Steinway & Sons Technical Services Division Guidelines for Institutional Piano Service you will find the following in Steinway Guidelines G. Green pg. 2 under section heading 2. Piano Services and a) Tuning and Overlook: "... Concert Instruments should be tuned to A-441 to more easily address requests for pitch changes. ..." By concert instruments I would assume they mean B's or D's. A lot of roving orchestras, bands and even occasionally, soloists require this on their contracts. When asked about this they usually comment on it as a matter of self-defence against pianos that end up under A4=440hz during concert conditions. As Guy Nichols noted, concert conditions usually don't mirror tuning conditions. One of my venues is now well trained. The D is on stage where it will be with full concert lighting two hours before I am scheduled to arrive to tune and prep it. That is the exception. They have agreed to keep it a 441 and I think the only ones who get cross-eyed are vocalists. Even then the hall is cooler than it will be when it is packed full of enthusiastic audience. I haven't bothered to check pitch on the piano during intermissions like Guy did to document pitch-drop in the halls he serviced. No-one has had any complaints or requests for me on the pianos I service. (With the exception of a D born defective and sold to one venue here with the strings out-of-reach of action adjustments. The Steinway tech. had broken off some drop screws attempting to raise drop above 1/4" and failed to mention anything to the university. That warranty saga continues still without any end in sight other than a gift of action shims!) Gave me pause when I first saw it too. Makes sense to me after consideration. Andrew Anderson At 07:53 AM 2/11/2007, you wrote: >Um, what piece of literature would that be? Page 57 of the Steinway & >Sons Technical Refernce Guide does mention A440, but that wasn't model >specific. >Yes, I do like references and footnotes ... >Patrick Draine > >On 2/10/07, Andrew and Rebeca Anderson <anrebe at sbcglobal.net> wrote: > >>Probably why Steinway literature recommends tuning the D to 441. >> >>Andrew Anderson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070211/6608a10b/attachment.html
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