Type O

[Alan R. Barnard]

You may very well be right. But back to my real question: Why don't we KNOW these things, from research rather than just empirical evidence and people's experience, theories, etc.?

Alan Barnard
Salem, MO
Joshua 24:15






Original message
From: "Dean May" 
To: "Pianotech List" 
Received: 02/21/2007 11:25:19 PM
Subject: RE: Type O


Alan wrote: It's like the other question I posed and have never felt I had a satisfactory answer: Since a piano cycles up and down, typically, with humidity swings, why doesn't it always stay centered around the last tuned pitch. In other words, what is the cause of long term major pitch drops and what has changed in that piano over the 20 years since it was last at pitch. Do the pins turn? Does the wire just keep stretching? Why don't we know? 
 
 
My theory is that once the “slack” is taken out of the strings, the pitch does not drop significantly. I have seen pianos that haven’t been tuned in 20-30 years at or near  pitch because early in their life they were tuned frequently. 
 
Also I’ve run across 20 year old Kimballs that had never been tuned. Of course they would be 150 cents flat. But once the customer had a several tunings done over 5-6 years, then skip 5-6 years, the piano would still be close to pitch. I’ve seen this happen, I promise, I am not making it up. ;-)
 
In short, my theory on the cause of major pitch drops is that it mostly happens in pianos that have never had the initial tunings required to get the stretch taken out of the new wire. 
 
Dean
Dean May             cell 812.239.3359 
PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272 
Terre Haute IN  47802



From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Alan R. Barnard
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 10:24 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Type O
 
Finished tuning a Yamaha grand (2 pedals, about C sized, grey market?) and was filling out my invoice when I slightly sliced my right pinky--paper cut, right near the nail. I didn't think too much of it, there was a drop of blood which wiped on a tissue. 
 
Put tools away except for hammer, went to make customary final check of tuning. Got to playing a little Brahms and kind of distractedly looking at the lady's weird little dog.
 
When I looked back at the keyboard, it looked like OJ had been playing Rachmaninoff. With me staring stupidly at my finger and the keys, in walks the customer.
 
BTW as to the "false beats" discussion that has been going on (and on and on ...) I have a poser, an observation: How come we don't know what is really going on? It seems like with all the science available to us (math, high speed photography, spectrum analyzers, etc.) that we would have more definitive knowledge of causes and cures by now.
 
 
Alan Barnard
Salem, MO
Joshua 24:15
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