Arts Entertainment and Leisure > Musical Instruments
Yamaha has been building fine pianos for more than 100 years! During that time there were big and small growing pains. For example in the early days of exporting pianos from Japan to the United States, there were problems with some of these instruments. In Japan, the population enjoys high humidity. The Japanese people keep their homes, their buildings, and even their restaurants at temperatures and humidity levels far different from what we are accustomed to in North American.
The Japanese are comfortable living with temperatures in the 90’s with humidity levels to match! And because of this fact, Yamaha has always built the domestic (Japan) pianos with high moisture content. However, when these domestic pianos were first brought to the United States during the 1960’s, the pianos quickly began to experience problems.
Here in North America, we traditionally like to keep our homes warm and dry in the winter and cool and dry during the summer. Our comfort level is much different than the comfort level of the average Japanese home. And, because we like our surrounding conditions much drier, a piano with high moisture content will begin to dry out and lose its high moisture. When this happens, glue joints may open up, veneers may lift and, in a worst-case scenario, the soundboard could crack or even split.
Because of this condition, Yamaha decided that the pianos built for shipment to North America should contain much lower moisture levels. Once this change was in place, Yamaha pianos destined for this country contained about 6% less moisture than those built for use in Japan. The change made a huge difference and these pianos reacted much differently than the earlier models.
Details
- Last Updated
- 06/Nov/2024
- Contact
- Sharon Mitchell
- [email protected]
- Phone
- (360) 693-1511
- Website
- http://www.pianotuningschool.org/
- Address
- 2510 E Evergreen BlvdVancouver, WA 98661