Piano Tuning
Expert Piano Tuning by Qualified Piano Tuner, Technician.
As you are looking at my site, the chances are that you are looking to have your piano tuned. May be it hasn’t been tuned for a while or you have just acquired it and want it to be put back into tune.
Unlike say a guitar that has to be tuned every time you play, a piano is designed to be stable and give many months of use before retuning. But there are factors that can aid and others that can hinder a piano’s tuning being more stable. Factors such as, the condition of the strings and tuning pins, the string bridges and the Piano Sound Board, the pin block that holds the tuning pins. The environment the piano is kept in can affect the tuning stability, if it is too damp or too dry. Often central heating radiators in the room it is kept in, if they are too high can dry the air out and in turn the piano. It is often good have radiators next to a piano turned lower, and or a Piano Humidifier fitted to compensate for the dry air in such cases. All these factors can have an effect on how often a piano may need tuning.
But a piano will change naturally with the seasons as the wood expands and contracts, so it is always good to have a piano retuned at least once a year, preferably twice a year to allow for the change of the seasons. If you are playing every day with many hours of daily use, even every three to five months is not unusual if the piano gets a lot of use.
If you would like to discuss further aspects of piano tuning I will be happy to assist.
Piano Pitch Raising to Concert pitch.
If a piano has not been tuned for a long while, it will probably be bellow pitch and a long way out of tune. Providing the piano is structurally sound and the tuning pins are tight, it is often possible to bring it up to ‘concert’ pitch, which is A440 Hz or C523.3 Hz. This can be done over two or three visits. But after that to see the true benefit, the piano needs to be tuned regularly so that it becomes more stable again. Over the whole piano frame there are many tons of pressure being exerted and the thickness and length of each string is precisely calculated to give an equal tension. So when a piano goes far out of tune, depending on the piano, it can take several tunings before it becomes stable again.
Often these days I find that customers like to use ‘tablet apps’ as an aid to learning. The pitch on the tablet app would be set to the concert pitch, and therefore it would be desirable to have the piano at the same pitch. The overall tone of the piano can also be improved. In the process of pitch raising though, it is possible to have some strings breaking, as very old strings (in particular bass strings) can become brittle and prone to breaking under increased tension.These factor would be taken into consideration at the time of the first visit and allowed for in the overall costs.