It seems like an obvious thing. If your piano sounds bad, get it tuned by all means. You might not know how bad or how to know what to even listen for. Maybe you’re new at piano, and you’re afraid maybe you’re going too long, or perhaps you’re throwing away hundreds of dollars unnecessarily. So I’m going to give you some pointers today.
Perhaps you’ve probably heard the term “A440”. A440 is the reference that orchestras tune to often and pianos are tuned to. It’s the A above middle C on the piano, and when you hear A, you’re actually hearing 440 vibration cycles per second. That’s right; your mind is a calculator of frequencies when you recognize pitches! If your piano goes low or possibly even high from the weather, you might not know it since it could be in tune with itself. In this instance, you want to utilize some kind of reference pitch. The easiest thing in this day and age is to find an app you can put right on your phone to check your tuning periodically to make sure “A” is at 440. If it’s at A441 or something like that you’re okay. But if you see it slipping down several points, you want to get your piano tuned because otherwise, the tuning won’t hold very long if you let it get too far gone.
What about if the piano is basically on pitch? You’ve tried different notes that are all about center, some are a little high, and some are a little low. You wonder what are you listening for when notes are out of tune. When you play notes that are in tune on a piano, there’s a purity to the sound. I’m going to let you hear as I detune one of the strings on a G on a piano just a slight amount on the accompanying video. You’re going to hear waves. Why do you hear waves? Well, pitches are simply waves going through the air. “A” is 440 cycles per second and if you have three strings and one of them is going at a slightly slower frequency than the other ones, you get the interference wave of where they start over again. Like if two people are clapping at different speeds, eventually they match up again. It’s the same thing with this, so I’m going to detune this one string very slightly so you can hear the detuned chorus effect which makes the tone thicker like two pianos playing the same note slightly out of tune with one another.
When you go through your piano, and you hear any notes that aren’t pure, those are the notes that are out of tune. So you might go through your piano, and some of the notes will be pure and others might have waves. You want the notes to sound pure, and you don’t want to hear the strings distinct from one another. You want to hear just that one pure pitch. So in a nutshell, you want to make sure your piano’s basic pitch is up to pitch either with a tuning fork or better yet, get an app on your phone. I recommend “PanoTuner”.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-chromatic-tuner-pano-tuner/id449780743?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.soundlim.panotuner&hl=en_US
It’s a very easy app to use, and it’s available for iPhone, iPad and Android phones and tablets. I use it quite often to check pitches on pianos around the store. Usually, I can tell when they’re low because of an interesting fact. If your piano drops in pitch a bit and it’s in tune with itself, you might think it’s okay until you get it tuned. Pianos are made to sound their best at A440, and when they drop in pitch, you get a dull, lifeless sound. So, tuning your piano will enhance the sound. Also, changes of weather effect tuning. So, put it on your calendar for when you go through changes of seasons. When you go from air conditioning to heat and back again later in the season, your piano could shift, and that’s a good time to get out the app and check things out. Listen carefully note to note and listen to see if any of them have beats or waves that I demonstrated to you. I hope this is helpful for you! Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com – your online piano store! 949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com