Rainy day tuning: Was: pitch change

[J Patrick Draine]

>Friends,
>
>Years ago a client called me on the morning I was scheduled to tune 
>her piano.  She
>wondered if we should reschedule, since it was raining.  My 
>understanding at the
>time was that the tuning doesn't change that fast, so not to worry about it.
>
>But incidents such as Warren's would debunk that.

Was her piano on an outside porch? Probably not.

>   The past couple of years I've
>heard of, and experienced, pianos changing even in the process of 
>tuning.  Jack
>Stebbins has a story about doing a concert tuning.  He was part way 
>finished when
>someone snapped the air conditioning on, which changed the tuning before he
>finished.

It's happened to me, too. Air conditioning, or even forced hot air 
blowing into the piano as you're tuning during the winter, can make 
you feel like you're tuning in quicksand. It's best to keep the 
temperature constant while you're tuning, however uncomfortable it 
may be for you (horribly hot & humid in the summer, too cool in the 
winter). In a concert situation you may find yourself stuck, though, 
because the comfort of the audience entering the hall in the next 
hour is very important.
The only real solution is planning: the venue should have its 
heating/air conditioning system running at least several hours before 
you're scheduled to show up. Not many hall managers/church custodians 
realize this, and few of us inform them in a sufficiently direct 
manner.

>
>What do you tell people on rainy days?
>

Close the windows!

Patrick