audience throws off pitch

Conrad Hoffsommer hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu
Thu, 25 Mar 2004 10:12:50 -0600


Wally,

At 07:49 3/25/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>One of my professors, a clarinetist, asked me to tune
>the little Baldwin grand in the dining hall, as they
>were having a concert/dinner the next night and he was
>playing. The next week, when I asked him how it went,
>he told me that it was a good thing he had a shorter
>barrell for his clarinet as the piano went sharper and
>sharper as the evening went on.

Are you sure his clarinet wasn't going flat because of _his_ warm moist 
breath going through it?
What was temperature in the dining room when you tuned it vs: concert time??

>I suspected that the increased humidity caused by 500
>people exhaling in the dining hall may have done it.
>Have any others of you experienced a similar
>situation?


Generally, I've noticed a tendency for the piano to go flat as the house 
heats up.



Conrad Hoffsommer - Music Technician
Luther College, 700 College Dr., Decorah, Iowa 52101-1045
Vox-(563)-387-1204 // Fax (563)-387-1076

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.

---Wm. Shakespeare - Merchant of Venice


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