instability

[Bill Ballard]

>Piano instability, that is......<snip> I restrung it a year ago, and told
>them it wouldn't really
>stabilize for a couple of years.  But I just wanted to check before I got
>into trouble.

>Leslie Bartlett

As Don Mannino says, there's a whole host of forces acting (yea, pushing)
on the tuning causing it to shift from where your last tuning put it.
Becauseyou've asking about a piano recently restrung, I'm assuming that
you're asking about the pull on a tuning due to the initial (Ha! there's a
misnomer) elongation of a fresh stringing. In fact it has a half-life. (I
suggested this to Al Sanderson back in '93 and he concurred. He had seen
chart by Klaus Fenner of pitch drop in new wire with logarithmic axes
(plural). The line was a straight one.)

A good A-B test to demonstrate pitch loss due to elongation is the bichord
note on which you've replaced just one string. The soundboard is doing its
heave and sigh identically for both strings on that note. Possibly, the
neighboring unisons are stable enough to eliminate playing stress as a
factor. If so, the sag in the new bass string is a function of stretch, a
stretch which we have all seen continue in subtle amounts for two years or
more.

If this in an indication of the elongated time frame for the stretching of
new wire, then just imagine that the same process is under way when the
entire set of strings is replaced. But when all strings are gently sagging
downwards together, that amount of sag after a year's time may  not be
noticeable given the ambient fluctuations of climate also occuring.

How soon can you play a concert on a fresh stringing? I finished string a B
on a Tuesday. The dampers went in on Wed and Thurs.,after which civilized
tunings with the action were possible (as opposed to fingernail chippings).
Friday morning it was moved to a private home form a fundraiser recital
that evening. I did a rough tuning to bring it up from A437 to A440,
followed by a good solid tuning. It was stable for that tuning, and
(excepting a litlle softness in the unisons at around #51-52) it was stable
for the all Schubert concert. I was proud of the piano. The next week it
went to a local theater for a community orhcestra piano concerto. For that,
it needed another pitch raise but once again, when at pitch, behaved itself
during the tuning and the concert.

Of course tuning stability here is measured in the short interval betweenm
the end of the tuning and the end of the concert. But isn't that how you
measure it for concert purposes? If so, this old diva (Ben teuhauft used to
take care of her) passed muister.

Bill Ballard, RPT
New Hampshire Chapter, PTG

"Can you check out this middle C?. It "whangs' - (or twangs?)
    Thanks so much, Ginger"

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