In a message dated 2/7/00 4:44:16 AM Pacific Standard Time, gharvey@netsource.co.nz writes: << We have a fairly humid climate ranging from about 50%RH to 70%RH and occasional extremes each side. We never see the humidity drop much under 45%RH. The temperature range is even less 8 c to 12 c winter and 18c to 24c in summer, again with some extremes each side. Quite temperate. We do see action sticking problems and do a lot of repinning action centers but rarely need to repair soundboards. Virtually no-one here has air-conditioning and few have central heating. >> Sounds like heaven to me. Where I grew up in Los Angeles, the climate is also very mild and temperate but drier than where you are. I tune my relatives and a few other customers pianos once every three years and never need to change pitch. One time, I tuned the piano which I grew up on and on which I initially learned to tune in 15 minutes after it had gone for 3 years. It simply didn't need any more correction than that. My sister has it now and her two children are taking lessons on it. It is a Kimball studio made in the old factory in Chicago. I have no doubt that it will last longer than I will. It was made in 1959. Here, in the Upper Midwest, which is a few hundred miles south of the Southern North Pole where some of those Minnesota guys live (I don't even want to think about what it must be like in the plains of Canada), it always does go from one extreme to the other, every year. Dampp-Chaser systems help a lot but even with them, pianos need tuning seasonally. Just in order to survive and produce a tuning that will hold for a few months, you have to have very good and stabilizing technique. You can almost always count on a pitch change. There are some schools however, that get the piano tuned only once a year, midway through the Fall. These pianos are always at the same pitch. They must really be terrible in the Summer but are not used then. But when school starts in late August or early September, they must be really bad. They must also get bad again about this time of year but by the end of the scholastic year in May, they are sounding OK. As for it being good for business, not really. I do have a few customers that get the piano tuned 4 times a year, many who have it done twice, the rest just live with it that way. Some pianos actually get to the point where the become "seasoned" to the climate. The house they are in is stable and they seem to be resistant to whatever changes of moisture do occur. I'd rather have a customer who is happy with once a year service than one who is frustrated with the piano not staying in tune. They tend to shop around. Regards, Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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