Interesting ideas that I hadn't considered. Although I have not encountered this kind of difficulty with pitch fluctuation on my own pianos, both new and re-built (despite living in Cleveland and now Illinois for quite a few years now), I can appreciate the perspective of technicians with more experienceand your experience dealing with fluctuating climates. I agree that in cases where pitch tends to fluctuate in a problematic way, stability would be a higher priority than tuning to A440. I've never really considered this, however...I always thought a piano was "in tune" if it was at 440 and the notion of "pitch correction" seems to be another way of saying "tuning." (I tend to think of the "pitch raise" as the result of years of failing to have the piano tuned, in which case an extra charge seems reasonable. I know I won't get much support for this notion on this list though:) I would assume that pianos naturally fall a bit flat over time, but if they are really swinging this far sharp during the summers, then that's another matter altogether, I suppose. Based on your responses, I would modify my previous view that it is not ethical to leave a piano at anything other than A440, although I still hope this is the norm in most cases. About my suggestion of pinblock wear, this was the only possible problem that I could think of with very frequent tunings, based on the loosness of some pins on concert grands that I've encountered, including my own CD. I would assume that a re-stringing would need to be done earlier on these instruments that have regularly been tuned weekly or even daily, comparing with the normal grand that gets 2-4 tunings per year. Tim
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