Tuning

Tuning is the most basic kind of piano maintenance there is, yet it is perennially misunderstood. What is tuning? Why do pianos go out of tune? How often and when should my piano be tuned? How can I minimize its going out of tune? These are some of the questions I and every other piano technician get asked constantly, and which I'll take up in this chapter. To jump to a section click on the link below:

What is Tuning?
Why Do Pianos Go Out of Tune?
How Often and When Should I Have My Piano     Tuned?

As explained elsewhere in this book, the more than two hundred strings in a piano are stretched at high tension across a cast-iron frame, one end of each string, being attached to a hitch pin and the other end coiled around a tuning pin. The pitch of each string when vibrating depends, among other things, on the tension at which it's stretched. By turning the tuning pin, the tension can be tightened or slackened, and thus the pitch altered, according to the wishes of the tuner, who performs this operation with a special kind of socket wrench confusingly called a "tuning hammer". Tuning, then means adjusting the tension of each of the piano strings, using a tuning hammer to turn the tuning pins, so that the pitch of each string sounds pleasingly in harmony with every other string according to certain known acoustical laws and aesthetic rules and customs. Note that whereas most tuners are also capable of providing other kinds of piano maintenance, tuning, properly speaking, is only the operation defined above, and does not include repairs and adjustments, fixing squeaky pedals, cleaning, and so on, as is often thought to be the case.

By far, the most important factor causing pianos to go out of tune is the change in humidity from season to season that occurs in most temperate climates, affecting all pianos, good and bad, new and old, played and un-played. The soundboard, glued down around its perimeter and bellied like a diaphragm in the center, swells up with moisture in the humid season and pushes up on the strings via the bridges on which the strings rest. This causes the strings to be stretched at a higher tension, raising their pitch. In the dry season, the opposite happens. The soundboard releases its moisture to the air and subsides, releasing the pressure on the strings, which then fall in pitch. Unfortunately, the strings don't rise and fall in pitch by exactly the same amount at the same time. The process is more random than that, with the result that the strings no longer sound in harmony with one another and need re-tuning.

To make matters worse, the change in pitch tends to be most pronounced in the tenor and low treble areas of the piano, whose bridges are located on the flexible center area of the soundboard. It's not at all unusual to find that high treble and low bass, whose bridges are located near the more stable perimeter of the soundboard, have remained virtually unchanged in pitch despite a huge change in the center. Any octaves or chords that, for example, span the bass and tenor at these times will sound especially out of tune.

If the piano has been properly tuned, moderate playing will not, by itself, have a large effect on the tuning. Rather, its effect is to accelerate whatever changes in the tuning are happening due to humidity fluctuations. A vibrating string more easily slides over its friction points than a stationary one, and thus is more apt to go randomly out of tune when its tension is being altered by the movement of the soundboard. Obviously, the harder and more frequently the piano is played, the faster this process will happen. But an un-played piano will still go out of tune with the seasons.

Although all pianos go out of tune, some do so more than others. Some pianos, including some very well-made ones, have soundboards that are very responsive to humidity changes and go through large seasonal variations in pitch. Other pianos, particularly some of the cheaper spinets and consoles, have weak structures that actually twist slightly from season to season or even while the pianos are being tuned, making stable tunings all but impossible. These pianos go out of tune chaotically, in addition to showing large seasonal variations in pitch.

When to tune your piano obviously depends on your local climate and how responsive your piano is to humidity changes. But, in general, you should avoid times of rapid humidity change and seek times when the humidity will be stable for a reasonable length of time. Turning the heat on in the house in the fall and winter, and then off again in the spring, both cause major indoor humidity changes, and in each case it make take several months before the piano soundboard fully stabilizes again at the new humidity level.

In Boston, the tuning cycle goes something like this for most pianos. A piano tuned in April or May when the heat is turned off in the house will probably be out of tune by late June. If it is tuned in late June or July, it may well hold its tune until October or later, depending on when the heat is turned on for the winter (although sometimes extreme humidity in August will do it in). If you have the piano tuned right after the heat is turned on, say in October or November, the piano will almost certainly be out of tune by Christmas. But if you wait until after the holidays (and of course, everyone wants it tuned for the holidays), it will probably hold pretty well until April or even May. In my experience, most accusations of tuner incompetence occur in November or December, and then to a lesser degree in June, and are caused not by the tuner at all, but by poor timing of the tuning with the seasonal changes.

If you have the piano tuned four or more times a year, you don't have to worry too much about the "right" time to tune it. Any seasonal tuning changes will be corrected soon enough. It's those who tune their pianos twice a year who have a problem. For these  people, there will be at least two times per year when the piano is noticeably out of tune  but when it will not yet be the right time to tune it. If you are in this group, you will have to decide then whether to go ahead and have it tuned—knowing it may go out of tune within a month or so$#8212;or to suffer until the "right" time. At those times of year, I try to inform customers who call for a tuning about the consequences of having the piano tuned then, and let them decide how badly they want it done.

There is an additional problem for the twice-a-year people. The times of rapid humidity change—spring and fall—are also the times of most moderate indoor humidity levels, while the times of stable humidity—summer and winter—are the times of most extreme humidity levels. The pitch of the middle range of the piano follows the humidity changes and is therefore most sharp and flat at the "recommended" tuning times. Pianos tuned at these times may have to undergo large pitch changes to bring them back to standard pitch. As any tuner can tell you, large pitch changes are the bane of stable tuning, as structural forces within the piano tend to make a piano tuning creep back in the direction from which it was moved. Pianos showing large seasonal pitch variations may require extra tuning work, at greater expense, and may not stay in tune as well. Thus, ironically, the tuning times recommended in response to climatic factors are the least recommended times in relation to structural stability, and vice versa. Unfortunately, there is no solution to this problem except to have the piano tuned more often.

If you tune the piano only once a year, you should do it at the same time each year so the tuner will not have to make much pitch adjustment. Some pianos actually go back into almost perfect tune each year around the anniversary of their tuning (but don't count on this happening).

How often you have the piano tuned will depend on only on the piano and the humidity inside your house, but also on your ear (how much out-of-tune-ness you notice and can tolerate) and on your budget. Four times a year is ideal, but impractical for most folks. The "official line" is twice a year. Where the piano is rarely used, once a year may suffice, but less than that is not recommended. The average cost of a piano tuning is currently from $75.00 to $125.00, depending on where you live. The cost could be higher if a "double tuning" (a rough tuning followed by a fine tuning) is required to compensate for large seasonal variations in pitch, or if for some other reason the piano was not at standard pitch. In some areas of the country, a double tuning is required almost every time a piano is tuned. Also, new pianos (or pianos that have been restrung) may need to be tuned more frequently the first year or so as the new strings continue to stretch.

You may legitimately ask how important it is to have a piano tuned; that is, will harm be done to the instrument if it isn't tuned? This is a subject piano technicians don't discuss much. When they do, they offer a variety of pseudoscientific explanations to convince their customers (or themselves) of the necessity for tuning. The truth, as I see it, is that in most cases no harm will be done to the piano. The harm is mostly to one's aesthetics—an out-of-tune piano can be painful to listen to. It can also be discouraging and distracting to a student. It may be impossible to play along with other instruments or with recordings, and the piano's tonal quality may be impaired. In the extreme case where a piano is being tuned after, say, twenty years of neglect, raising the pitch of the piano back to standard pitch will entail a good deal of extra work and could result in some broken strings or split bridges, but I'm not convinced that these problems would not have occurred anyway, and possibly sooner, if the piano had been maintained. Raising the pitch of a piano can also alter the positions of the strings in relation to their bearing points, introducing tonal irregularities (false beats) and buzzing strings, but this can often be corrected, and in any case is not what I would call "harmful". Suggestions that the piano will be structurally harmed if it is not precisely at standard pitch and in tune are, in my opinion, spurious. Having the piano serviced at regular intervals, however, may allow the technician to catch and correct small, non-tuning-related problems before they become big, expensive ones.

To schedule a tuning please call 1-800-241-0001 or use our contact form.

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