CAUT Guidelines, humidity

[Rob & Karen Loomis]

Here in New England, in institutional buildings designed and built 100+
years ago, I've read the temp. and humidity levels for the past 20+
years. I've tuned pianos, fortepianos, harpsichords and even clavichords
in studios and on stage. The humidity has ranged between 11%-92% R.H.,
the temp. between ~32* to 94* f.-more, I'm sure, when the spots [or sun]
are on the plate and soundboard for hours. The pianos [tuned at least
several times a year] have been found off by 50+ cents, the fortepianos
etc., off by 100+ cents.

I'd estimate that a shift of more than 5% R.H. will knock out most
grands. A spot light on the soundboard of a fortepiano, and a tuning
won't make it through a movement. It can be a trick to get the
fortepiano situated well acoustically and the artists able to see their
music without frying the soundboard. The option to open the instrument
and turn on the spots for 10+ hours, then tune and perform, is obviously
very damaging in the long term. One frustration with keeping a concert
instrument in a climate controlled environment and then taking it out
onto the spot lit stage is that the audience always hears the tuning at
it's least stabile. Anyone have some humidity-stagecraft strategies to
offer?

A Steinway concert grand in one off the funkiest environments has been
kept for the last two years with a Dampp-Chaser System always plugged in
and a floor length cover when not in use. It has never been more than 4
cents from A440, and that only at F2 and the notes just above it -
elsewhere within 2 cents. My tuning times are down to the point where I
can concentrate on the fine points of tone production.

Here in N.E., I'd estimate a savings of at least half for a tuning
budget and instruments closer to in tune between tunings.

"How to quantify for purposes of the guidelines? As a starting point, we

might suggest some arbitrary standards for excellent, good, fair and
poor conditions. Cent swings for those categories might be,
respectively, 5, 10, 15, 25 (average cents off A440 for the average
piano, where the performance piano(s) might be kept within 2 cents,
piano faculty within 5, down to uprights in practice rooms within 25, to

name some arbitrary figures). "

I'd second these numbers as guidelines, though it always irritates me
that students trying to develop their ears as well their fingers are
condemned  to play on poorly functioning uprights in poor tune.

Best wishes-

Rob Loomis
UMASS Amherst