[CAUT] temperature and pitch

[Jeff Tanner]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Sturm" <fssturm at unm.edu>
>I wasn't wanting to assert that this was  an extraordinarily precise 
>experiment (determining that 10F drop in  temp = 2 cents rise in pitch), 
>just that the observations I made were  suggestive. I was more interested 
>myself in the fact that the pitch  changed in this case pretty much as a 
>whole, without distortion across  the scale. I would have expected more 
>variance, say between plain and  wound strings, or between long and short 
>ones.

And I wasn't trying to dispel your suggestion, but perhaps offer a possible 
explanation as to why you didn't get the variance you expected. What you 
expected isn't different from what I would have expected if the actual 
components of the piano would have changed temperature as the room air did. 
I've had stage managers complain about pitch change in the low tenor once 
the lights heated everything up, and it would take more than 2 cents in the 
low tenor to be noticeably different to "lay" people in these types of 
shows. I've seen larger differences myself with no more than 10 degree temp 
changes.  So, I'd have to agree that I would expect a different result.
Jeff