 |
Why Do Pianos Go Out Of Tune?
First, wires stretch slowly all of the time. Technically
speaking, the piano is going out of tune as the tuner leaves your home
after tuning your piano. This is a piano tuners' chief job security.
Second, weather and climate changes work against the piano. In
the winter you heat the house up. The relative humidity goes way
down, and the wood frame of the piano shrinks. In the summer, the
humidity goes way up at times, and the wood frame expands. The result
is that the wires and tuning pins slip as the piano goes through these
cycles. I am told that some concert grand pianos can go through
extremes of as much as a half inch in their overall length. That's a
lot of movement.
Third, you pound on it, and you may move your piano around from
time to time. Playing a piano is not the worst thing for it. The
weather changes are the worst. Of course, if you have a big fisted
virtuoso beating out top volume all the time, that is sure to knock it
out of tune in several notes.
Fourth, age gets to a piano. The tuning pins are not mounted in
the metal harp as it appears when you look at the inside of the
piano. The pins go through those holes and are mounted in a big block
of wood.
The holes in the wooden pin block swell and shrink hundreds of times
during weather changes. Add many tunings, which eventually take their
toll as the pins are moved over and over. The resulting enlarged holes
allow the pins to loosen, slip, and drop a wire here and there,
especially in dry weather.
|
|
