explaining Pitch raise....

[Tvak@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 10/24/00 2:31:10 PM, mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com writes:

<< when pianos

have not been tuned for a period of time, the strings stretch over the years

and the piano slowly drops to a lower pitch >>

Is this true?  Pardon my inexperience/ignorance for even asking the question, 
but I've often wondered exactly what happens when a piano goes flat.  If 
indeed the strings continue to stretch over the years, wouldn't the coils 
around the tuning pins on an old piano grow?  Wouldn't there be eventually be 
four coils around the pin?  Or is it just that it's such a minute amount of 
stretching that it doesn't visibly show on the tuning pin?  

I've thought that maybe the pin just slips back a bit over time.  But then it 
wouldn't make sense that the pin would continue to slip back farther and 
farther, making the piano flatter and flatter as will happen on a piano that 
hasn't been tuned in a LONG time.

Tom S.