In a message dated 10/15/98 2:56:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
rolls@foxtail.com writes:

> Subject: Steam Calliope Tuning
>
>  How do you tune a calliope?
>
>  Meta Brown
>

Greetings,

In December of 1979 I had the opportunity to prepare a 20 whistle steam
calliope to play in the Jan. 1, 1980 Tournament of Roses Parade in
Pasadena.  The calliope was mounted on a large ornate circus wagon
pulled by 6 black Percherons.  The performer sat with his back to the
driver and the boiler was mounted over the rear axle in a covered part
of the wagon.

I recall I waited weeks while the boiler and plumbing were repaired.
I  did not know how well the valves or whistles would work until the
boiler was up and running.  We got steam on around Dec. 26 and only
then found how much work had to be done on the valves.   Again I had
to wait for the valves to be repaired.  Finally around Dec 29th I could
begin tuning and repairing the whistles.

The Instrument had a brass keyboard laid out like a piano but missing
some sharps.  (The keys were made of brass!)   It had a simple
mechanical linkage to the mechanical valves under each whistle.  The
whistles were on a V shaped manifold,  lined up with the keyboard at
the open part of the V.

I recall that the instrument had to warm up before playing or tuning.
When the manifold and whistles were cool the steam would condensed back
to water and only large amounts of HOT water would come out of the
whistles.   When it was played,  over spray of water would also come
down on the keyboard and performer adding to the experience.  When
everything was hot the whistles played well.

I did some minor repairs to the linkage and keyboard.  A licensed
operating engineer rebuild the valves,  boiler,  and plumbing.  We did
have to fabricate a new center stem for one of the whistles.

Now to tuning:

The tools I used were leather gloves, 2 adjustable  wrenches,
a Sight-O Tuner, and my ears,  which I protected with two layers of ear
protection.  We took a reading with a D/B meter and found the decibel
reading at the whistles was around 115 dB.

I had a helper at the keyboard playing each note.   As the note was
played I would look at the tuner and determine the relative pitch of
the whistle.  I would then loosen a large lock nut on the top of the
whistle and adjust the bell of the whistle up or down depending on the
pitch.  I would then have to re-secure the lock nut and step back or
turn away from the whistle steam while the helper played the note.
These steps were repeated many times for each note until the pitch was
in the right place.  This must have taken about 4 hours.  Fortunately
we were far enough away from our neighbors and protected by buildings
that we did not get any complaints from this process.

It was not a good idea to stand over the whistles when they played.
It was quite hot.   I had to caution the helper not to play a note
when I was leaning over the instrument.

By the way,  I was tuning the calliope to play with some prerecorded
music.  The pitch had to be "close."  I also used my ear to confirm the
tuning between 3rds,  5ths,  and chords as well as relative to the
prerecorded music.  I found that the whistles did drift in pitch a
little but that added to the character of the instrument.

There was a threshold of tolerance for "out of tuneness" which I used,
due to the age of the instrument,  condition,  and other factors
playing a part in the tuning.

On the morning of the parade it was cold for California and the
whistles did spew out a lot of water until the system was warmed up.
Bellowing large plumes of white clouds the instrument  looked and
sounded great!   It was the lead unit down the parade route.  Actually
a pre-parade.   Needless to say it could be heard for miles.

I can share more history of this instrument in a later posting.

Dave Allan