[pianotech] Experiences of Temperature on Tuning Stability Inquiry...

Ron Nossaman rnossaman at cox.net
Mon May 9 12:38:14 MDT 2011


On 5/9/2011 10:17 AM, Zachary LaMotte wrote:
> Dear Fellow Mailing-List Members-
>
> I am Zach LaMotte (current student at CSPT and newly applied associate
> member for the PTG!).  After extensive research on past discussions in
> the forums, I have found a lack of talk on the effect of temperature on
> tuning stability.  I am well-read on the impact humidity plays on the piano.

This comes up a couple of times a year, and we've been over it many 
times. String pitch shifts immediately with temperature change. The wire 
elongates as it warms up, shortens as it cools, changing tension and 
therefore pitch. Eventually, the plate will catch up and the piano will 
be pretty close to the state of tune it was in before the temperature 
shift. Tuning with furnace or A/C outflow blowing in the piano, or the 
sun shining in on the strings through the clouds intermittently, means 
the pitch will drift up and down as the unit (or sunshine) cycles, 
throughout the tuning. None of this has anything to do with humidity, as 
humidity induced tuning fluctuations typically take days, not minutes. 
That's pretty much it.

Ron N


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