Tuning Gone Bad: The Outcome

[Farrell]

Jimminy Gadzookas, that thar' pie-anner's got some problems.

I tuned this 1963 K&C 40" spinet three weeks ago. It was at pitch (I made one quick pitch raise pass in the high treble) and I tuned it to A440. The Pastor calls me a week ago and says the pianist said the piano has gone out of tune in the middle area. I went out there today.

Bass: 2 cents flat. Tenor: most of it 25 cents flat - tapering to A440 pitch at the break. Right back to 20 cents flat in the whole upper treble part. Searched all over piano for cracked plate, lost backpost, etc. Everything seems OK. Then I played 20 questions with Mr. Pastor Sir.

Turns out, the piano was moved the day before I tuned it (3 weeks ago) from the old church building to the new church building. The new church has three major AC units. Only one was going today, and it was nice an cool in there (90 outside). I did not have a hygrometer to measure in the old and new church, but I'm guessing that the old church is very high humidity, and the new church is very low humidity. That may be the primary cause of the plain wire sections of the piano to drop 20 cents.

But the piano was wierd. Bad wierd. I did a normal pitch raise, but the center ended up 5 to 8 cents flat. I did a tuning pass, with pulling the middle part up an extra cent or so to make all work out nice. The top half of the middle section ended up 4 to 5 cents sharp. So I retuned that part back down to pitch. Then the lower half of the middle section ended up 8 cents sharp! What's going on here!?!?!

Then I decided two things: 1) That thar' pie-anner's got some problems; and 2) I had better go the the store and get a bottle of wine and some chicken to grill. So I did. Problem solved.

Sumthin's screwy in St. Loui! I suppose I'll find out more about it next time they call. Oh well, interesting experience. I had never seen a piano change like that because of a presumed humidity change. Or maybe the plate is made of rubber.

Well, that's all I know.

Back to leading keys.

Terry Farrell