Yamaha pianos

[Christopher Witmer]

I just purchased a fancy-dancy digital hygrometer from Fisher Scientific 
that measures "everything" you could want to know. I intend to do daily 
measurements at various points inside my piano, inside my house, and outside 
my house in Tokyo, and keep records for a year. (Of course, there is plenty 
of variation from year to year.) Fairly accurate information is available 
for different cities in official government publications but I have been too 
lazy to go to the library and look it up. I'll get around to it. Actually, 
there is a lot of variation within Japan since the archipelago stretches 
"from Montreal to Cuba." The northernmost island of Hokkaido does not have a 
monsoon climate. Everything south of that does; however, there is a chain of 
mountains running north-south through the archipelago splitting everything 
into "Japan Sea side climate" and "Pacific Ocean side climate." The former 
region has very wet winters, while the latter region has very dry ones. The 
overwhelming majority of people in Japan live in a strip along the Pacific 
coast from around Tokyo in the north to around Hiroshima in the south. I'd 
say you've got about 60 million people in an area the size of southern 
California. (The entire land area of Japan is about the same as that of 
California.) Most of the pianos are going to be coming from this area, which 
is characterized by mild (hovering around the freezing point) but very dry 
winters, and extremely humid and hot summers. Tokyo's weather is typical: 
1770mm of precipitation annually; of that 500mm falls during the peak of the 
typhoon season in September, while only 50mm in the months of December and 
January. Most of the other months get around 100mm. Mold and mildew on 
pianos is not at all unusual.

Somebody mentioned Yamaha's policy of trying to eradicate pianos after 30 
years. I am not up on the details but, while hardly universal, essentially 
that seems to be the case. It's a crying shame.


<< I'd like to find out more about the dry cycles in Japan. Laroy Edwards
stated in a convention class that the domestic Yamaha soundboards are
dried down to 10% EMC whereas the US exports are brought down to 6%.
>From that I assumed that the winters there are not as dry as parts of
the US. And judging by the brown mold on the insides of some of the gray
market Yamahas, I can believe about the high humidity. >>

Tom Cole

Christopher Witmer wrote:
 >
 > Admittedly, the more arid parts of the USA can get dryer than Japan, but
 > you'd be surprised how dry Japan can get in the winter, when there may
 > be zero precipitation for a few months. In both countries, depending on
 > how people heat their homes in winter, the piano can be subject to
 > desert-like dryness. Japan's alternation between moderately cold, very
 > dry winters and obscenely humid summers is a characteristic not found in
 > much of the USA though.
 >
 > Tom Cole wrote:
 > >
 > > David Love wrote:
 > > >
 > > > Anybody have any information on the difference between Yamaha pianos 
built
 > > > in Japan for Japanese distribution versus ones for US distribution.  
I have
 > > > a customer looking at a U1, 15 years old that falls into the made for
 > > > Japanese distribution category.  It has only two pedals, otherwise 
there is
 > > > not obvious difference.
 > > >
 > > David,
 > >
 > > The main thing I would consider is what kind of environment is the 
piano
 > > going to be in? The Japanese climate is on the damp side and the pianos
 > > made for that market do not need to be prepared for the dryness
 > > experienced by so much of the US.
 > >
 > > I live on the Pacific coast where the humidity level is very similar to
 > > Japan's and none of the gray market Yamahas that I've seen have had any
 > > soundboard or pinblock problems. However, you might very well have a
 > > problem in other areas of the country from what I've read on this list
 > > (check the archives).
 > >
 > > Tom Cole
 > > Santa Cruz, CA
 > > mailto:tcole@cruzio.com

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