A quick question about steam calliopes.

We used to visit New Orleans fairly often, and we heard quite a bit of
steamboat calliope music from the steamboats tied up at the pier.  I
was wondering why on earth they were always so badly out of tune.  I
was just about ready to volunteer to try to figure out how to tune the
things and then go do it, but I was dissuaded by my companions, who
were afraid I'd get murdered by the offended steamboat crews.

Does a steam calliope have to warm up to be in tune, or are they
naturally just kind of impossible to tune up properly?  I have neither
perfect pitch nor particularly good relative pitch, but the problems
with these instruments were pretty obvious even to my distinctly
non-musical companions.

Mark Kinsler

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Interpretation and instruction of physical science and technology
Athens, Ohio, USA.     http://www.frognet.net/~kinsler