Last year, I helped some good friends of mine find a piano. After a couple of months looking, I found a Kawai console which they purchased last January (2001). This piano dates back to the late 70s with one owner, a professor and musician; the instrument was in very good condition with little hammer wear. I tuned it for them and did a full regulation of the piano, including setting key height and key dip. Now, just 13 months later, the keys are not level any longer. And I'm not being picky here, this keyboard looks like it needs orthodonture. I would expect a leveled keyboard to last for years before it needed leveling again. What would cause this? I can guarantee there are no children banging on the keys, as the parents are professional musicians and I am confident that this would never take place in their home. The humidity level in their home is at 21%, which seems very low to me, but then, I leveled the keys last January when the humidity was probably close to the same. This piano also goes out of tune amazingly fast in spite of the pins being tight in the block. I can see why it would be out of tune from my last tuning in August, now that the humidity in the home is so low, but I tuned it one week ago and today there were 3 or 4 unisons which had drifted dramatically. This is not a one time event, either; I am always disappointed when I visit them to find how poorly the piano has held its tune. The piano itself seems fine to me. The work I did on it is the same work I've done on other pianos. I have mentioned to them that the low level of humidity was not good for the piano and could possibly be causing these problems and I got the fish-eye. I'm afraid they think that there's either something wrong with the piano, or me, and they're leaning towards me on that issue. Could the low humidity be at the bottom of all of this? The piano is NOT near a heat vent, it's even sitting on an inner wall. There is a fire place across the room about 10 feet away. They use it frequently. What's going on here? Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks, Tom Sivak
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