An education in stability

[Richard Moody]

Hi David,
    You said, "The pit is low and cold, and there is constant air flow one
can feel."
With that kind of draft, no piano will be stable.   Are you the pianist or
does the pianist use a heater to keep his/her feet warm, and perhaps a draft
from that gets into the bottom of the piano?
If not, you might try renting a piano for a week to see if that one is more
stable.  Or sometimes a long neglected theater piano might have been
recently raised to pitch, but even that should be stable in a week.

    I had an encounter with a piano that was unstable but it was on stage
rather than in the pit.  The player played in his stocking feet (because of
the lower mic) and to keep warm he had a heater with a fan.   They (the
musicians and cast) complained that the tuning was unstable and to make a
long story short, the pianist showed up when I was tuning and pronounced the
piano in question "in tune"   "but I have not tuned it yet" I replied.   He
was amazed and said that it was "way out"  by the end of performance.   I
spotted the heater and asked him if he used it and how it was directed. I
pointed out that the airflow from that comming on to the soundboard at the
bottom of the piano could throw it off.  "That much?" he asked.  I said, "Is
this piano in tune now?" and he said "yes" and since I hadn't heard it right
after the performance, but he said it was awful, and he was hearing it now
and wondering how it could be so bad and then come back into tune, all I
could say was, "Don't use that heater, try a hot pad instead"      After
that I never heard about that piano being out.   It was for "Ain't
Misbehavin'"   They used two Kawai upright pianos side by side off of stage
right. (audience view).  Apparently one went out and the other one stayed
put.
    Lucky thing for me, they could have  said, "This tuner is no good, lets
try another".  but fortunatly the piano player did take the time to come
down at an odd hour to see what was going on.  I gave him my card and told
him to call me directly if they still had a problem.  No calls and I kept
the job and the next job and the next job, and the pit pianos were all
"apartment sized Yamaha uprights"    ---ric


----- Original Message -----
From: David Renaud <studiorenaud@qc.aibn.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 10:49 PM
Subject: An education in stability


> Doing a pit show for "Chorus Line" as a musician, and was asked to
> tune the piano. The crew brought their own piano into the pit, an
> apartment sized Yamaha.
>
> I have never experienced such instability. By the end of every show
> it is way off, unisons are bad, octaves bad, top flat. Tuned it 4 times
> so far for 4 shows.By the second half it sounds horrible.
>
> The pit is low and cold, and there is constant air flow one can feel.
> They fill the place up with 700-1000 people and things change.
>
> Also as the orchestra plays, the platform shakes and shimys
> around a bit, constantly.
>
> I've never done a cold pit like this before,
> with an instrument not use to the enviroment.Perhaps
> it is the shaking of the platform.
>
> Any words of wisdom from those that do tune for pit orchestra
> from time to time?
>
> I should pop the action out and check the treble bridge for cracks.
> Something is going on that in quite out of the ordinary in my
> experience.
>
>
>                                              Cheers
>                                              Dave Renaud
>                                              RPT
>
>
>