I think you're right on, John. When I worked at the university here, I came to think of this as "average A440". In temperate climates with wide humidity swings, A440 is a moving target. It seems to me that in many, if not most, situations we need to focus more on keeping the pitch close and the intervals sounding as good as possible. Once I got tired of chasing absolute pitch around the seasons and changed to this approach (in combination with humidity control where possible), I was much happier and so were my fussy clients. Kerry Kean Kent, Ohio _____ From: John Formsma [mailto:formsma at gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 11:15 PM To: Pianotech List Subject: Re: more on floating pitch On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 7:53 AM, Mike Spalding <mike.spalding1 at verizon.net> wrote: This piano was tuned to A440 in March, and by August the A2 - A3 octave was 13 cents wide. Are you saying that If I had floated the pitch at 439 in March, that octave would not have gone as wide? Mike It depends on your humidity swing. But, yes, it probably would not be as wide in August. If you are tuning right before a humidity increase, you can tune the tenor section a bit flat, and the bass octaves slightly sharp (in anticipation of the tenor going sharp). Like I said before, to you and me as tuners, either way the octaves would sound off. It just wouldn't be as bad if the tenor is not raised as much, then further increases because of humidity. And you can't do this with critical situations. But it works for homes, and should work fine for schools. Better stability is the goal. I've observed this repeatedly with a church Yamaha C3 that experienced huge changes with humidity. Before I "clued in", I would be doing a pitch raise to A440 in late winter, and the piano would be 12 cents sharp by early summer. And it sounded horrid! After I realized that the pitch corrections were causing instability, I would leave the overall pitch just under A440 (A440- 3 cents since their organ was at A440) in winter, and just over in summer. It then stayed much closer to A440 throughout the year. The climate control in that church was horrible. Before I installed a DC system, it got tuned 5-6 times a year. Now, it is tuned 2-3 times a year. The tenor was always incredibly out of tune with the rest of the piano. With the DC, it still goes out, but not nearly as much. -- JF -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080828/170f0225/attachment.html
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