Hi John, You (and others) are quite right that I did not mention changes in relative humidity. The RH doesn't really factor into this phenomenon, as it is individual notes, sprinkled here and there throughout the scale that had been tuned at 30 to 50 cents sharp for eight years that have crept back almost all of the way up after pitch-loweering and tuning in ET at 440. Other notes, in many cases right next to the aformentioned notes, that had been near pitch or below for those same eight years had behaved predictably after re-tuning. Alan -----Original Message----- From: John Ross <jrpiano at win.eastlink.ca> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 7:17 pm Subject: Re: [pianotech] interesting alternative tuning experience You neglected to mention if there had been a change in the humidity? I always mark the temperature and humidity on the bill. If the humidity changes, say during a season change, the pitch can change in less time than that. If you tuned during the heating season, and then returned when the weather was warm and/or the furnace off. The humidity would be higher, along with the pitch. John Ross On 16-Dec-08, at 8:27 PM, reggaepass at aol.com wrote: List, I just had my second go-around at trying to get a piano that had been tuned in an unusual way for a long time back to "normal". It was in a tuning that had some notes near normal tension, others up to a quarter-tone flat, and still others as far sharp(!). In addition, the piano had been in that tuning for the past eight years (most of them in Germany--it is a 1904 Schwechten grand with a bridge design I've not seen before). On my first visit to start the long journey home to equal temperament at A=440, I started by doing a pass using the pitch-change function on anAccutuner (which determines off-sets for each note independently of what came before, and I measured for every note). That got it close enough to follow immediately with a straight machine tuning (with recalculated FAC), unisons-as-you-go from A0 to C8. The piano had been vastly transformed, although I cautioned that there were no guarantees how long it would sound in tune. The owner reported that the piano s tarted going out of tune within weeks of the last servicing. When I returned for a follow-up visit three and a half months later, I was unprepared for what I encountered. Some notes, the ones that had been sharp, had crept back up in pitch, many nearly 100% (!!) of the way back up to where they had been for those eight long years. I've done many alternate tunings, almost always lowering pitch and never raising individual notes more than 10 cents or so. But after a pitch-raise and a tuning or two, things have always returned to normal in a rather predictable way. I have never tuned notes 50 cents sharp nor have I ever left an alternative tuning on a piano for more than a few weeks at a sho t. (Last week we tuned a concert grand to select instruments from one of our Balinese gamelans, but the piano spent less than a week from the first "Balinese" tuning to the retuning to ET @440.) Has anyone else out there had any experience with notes and/or entire pianos being tuned sharp for prolonged periods of time? If so, did you observe the same kind of behavior upon retuning? What would be the most efficient way to get it back to "normal"? Thanks & Happy Holidays, Alan Eder Listen to 350+ music, sports, & news radio stations – including songs for the holidays – FREE while you browse. Start Listening Now! John Ross Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20081217/0b29af10/attachment.html>
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