Tuning a piano cost different amounts in various regions. Some remote places have no piano technicians! So, when tuners come through, they are in incredible demand and command high rates for tuning. In metropolitan areas with lots of tuners, the going rate is usually around $100-150 – some areas are higher than others. And top-notch concert level tuners can cost substantially more.
But this is only half the story! Because it also depends upon several other factors:
– How often the piano is tuned
– How much the piano is played
– Stability of the environment
– Quality of the piano
Pianos that are played a great deal such as in schools or pianos owned by serious players who practice a lot will require much more tuning than pianos that are not played much.
A place that has wide swings of temperature and humidity will cause a piano to become out of tune more readily than in a more stable environment.
A higher quality piano will hold its tuning longer than a lower quality piano. Newer pianos and newly rebuilt pianos will also require more tuning and adjustment as strings stretch and the piano settles.
So, there is much to be considered when servicing your piano. There is almost always at least some additional adjustments necessary when getting your piano tuned. So the cost of having a piano technician visit can vary a great deal. $100-$150 would be an ideal amount to spend if you have a high quality, broken in piano tuned on a regular basis, kept in a stable environment and played minimally. In most instances, the cost will be greater.
Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any questions about this subject or any subject at all please contact us directly info@livingpianos.com (949) 244-3729
Can you tune your piano with your phone? The simple answer to this question is yes, you can! What do I mean by “tuning your piano with your phone”? We’ve come to such an age where we carry super computers in our pockets, and there is remarkable software that can aid you in tuning your piano.
When I was a child, if a tuner would come to tune my father’s piano with a strobe tuner (which was the technology of the time) it was an indication of an incompetent tuner since virtually no tuner could get a piano in tune utilizing just a strobe tuner. Was it because the strobe tuner wasn’t accurate enough? It’s true that the digital technology of today is far more accurate. The technology that is offered today is even more accurate than human hearing!
But there is more to it. To get a piano to sound right, it is not a simple matter of having the piano perfectly in tune. There is a certain amount of artistry that goes into tuning a piano. There are two reasons for this. The first has to do with the deficiencies inherent with pianos. The smaller a piano is, the less fundamental tone you have and the more overtones are present. Those are higher pitches contained within each note of the piano. The overtones must blend with the fundamental tones of higher notes on the piano. There are different formulas for getting a sweet tone out of a piano This is dependent on a piano’s size and its scale design. A trained technician with experience can achieve a sweet sound throughout all registers. The other limitation is that human hearing is not perfect. When you get higher up in pitch, you actually start to hear pitches flat. So, a piano’s tuning must be stretched so that octaves are not exactly 2 to 1 mathematical relationships which is what octaves are. They are ever so slightly bigger!
Strobe tuners and technologies from year’s past did not account for any of these things. The technology today is designed to compensate for these factors. There are several free programs you can use that can assist you in tuning your piano or checking the tuning on your piano. A popular one I like to use is an app called Panotuner.
I use it to set the temperament (all the notes in one octave in the middle of the keyboard) when tuning my harpsichord as well as my fortepiano. However, it doesn’t have the sophisticated features that you really need to tune a piano without utilizing your ears.
There are two programs that are used by professional piano tuners and technicians. One is called Tune Lab and the other one is Cyber Tuner. These are available for your phone or computer. You may ask yourself, how do these technologies account for deficiencies in pianos and human hearing? Think of it this way. In the medical community, we are coming to a point where there will be super intelligent robotic doctors. This is a technology in its infancy. The combined knowledge of tens of thousands of doctor are rolled into a machine that can make diagnosis’ much better than any one doctor could. While this AI technology is evolving in the medical profession, it is already highly evolved in the piano tuning realm. The software programs include the input from thousands of piano tuners as well as many different pianos and the correct mathematics in order to get pianos to sound right. For example, if you have a piano that is low in pitch, it is really important to stretch the tuning so that it can accommodate the added stress and tension on the bridge and soundboard which changes the tuning of previously tuned sections of the piano as you are tuning!
On these software programs, typically, you play all the A’s on the piano first, and it will calibrate how much to stretch the tuning so that by the time you are done tuning, the piano will be in tune. Otherwise, you may have to tune the piano twice – once to raise the pitch and a second time for a fine tuning. There are basic tools you need in order to tune a piano besides software. You need a tuning hammer and wedges as well as felt strips that are relatively inexpensive. Here is something vitally important to understand. Any competent piano tuner will get a piano in tune. Only a great tuner can get a piano to hold its tuning for any reasonable amount of time. If I were to play massive works of Prokofiev and Liszt for example just after a piano has been tuned, if it had been tuned by a novice, it may sound good initially, but the tuning would go out very quickly. A concert level tuner knows how to set the pins and strings so that it can sustain hard blows and still maintain pitch.
So yes, you can tune a piano using your phone. However, it takes years of experience tuning hundreds of pianos in order to be able to tune a piano to hold well over a reasonable amount of time. I hope this article has been helpful for you. You are welcome to send your questions which may appear in future articles and videos to Robert@LivingPianos.com.
The short answer is constantly. Pianos go out of tune as soon as you start playing them and if you are practicing every day it will require regular maintenance. I touch up my concert grand nearly every day and I carry around my tuning tools no matter where I go. My father Morton Estrin always insists upon having a piano tuner at his recording sessions touching up the piano between takes! There really is no end to how much you can tune your piano – pianos benefit from regular maintenance.
But let’s be realistic, most people are not going to be able to tune their pianos every day. While you can buy a tuning hammer and a couple wedges to touch up the piano, tuning is something you generally will want to leave to the professionals. The good news is most people won’t have to tune their piano every day – or even every week.
There is an old saying among piano tuners, “You can’t tune an out of tune piano,” and as strange as it sounds, there is some truth to it! If a piano hasn’t been tuned in a very long time it can be much harder to get it back in tune. For example, if the piano has dropped in pitch, as you tune different sections of the piano, previously tuned sections go out. So the general rule is that you should keep your piano in tune as much as you can. If you tune your piano often enough you can get ahead of the curve and the instrument tuning becomes very stable. So you never save by putting off a tuning.
How much should you tune your piano really depends on how much you play it. If you play occasionally you should think about tuning your piano at least twice a year because of seasonal weather changes (heat to air conditioning and air condition back to heat). If you play a bit more you might want to get at least 4 piano tunings a year. If you practice a great deal you will want to get your piano tuned at least every month. If the piano is used for performance or recording, it should be tuned for each performance or recording session.
Keep in mind, tuning a piano is not like tuning other instruments – like a guitar for example. Sure, everyone has the ability to do it themselves but it is truly a job better left to professionals. I have been around pianos my entire life and while I do perform touch up work on my pianos constantly, a great tuner will get a piano to hold longer and knows how to refine the tone and touch which takes years to master. Tuning a piano is really a highly developed skill and the better technician you hire the better your instrument will sound.
This really is not as easy as it sounds. Just like finding a good dentist or mechanic, finding a good piano tuner can be a great challenge. Luckily, there are resources available in finding the right piano tuner for you.
It might seem that the best decision would be to simply pick up the phone book or Google the cheapest piano tuner you can find. However, tuning a piano – and especially working on them for more advanced jobs like voicing and regulation – is a very important part of keeping your piano playing its best. You shouldn’t just trust anyone to do this job. If you find a great piano tuner your piano will actually stay in tune longer than if you use someone who is less experienced or gifted. So finding a highly skilled piano technician could actually save you money! The perspective that an experienced tuner offers can also help guide you through important decisions required in the upkeep of your piano.
As with most service professionals, one of the best resources is to contact close friends or relatives who you know have fine pianos. They will most likely have a tuner they trust and would be willing to share information with you. Another great resource is to inquire at a local University that has a performance space. They will most certainly have a piano technician they use on a regular basis. Performance venues (local symphonies) will very likely use a great piano tuner because the piano must perform on a high level for visiting artists.
Another great resource is the Piano Technicians Guild. http://www.ptg.org They are an organization that has been around for years. They have tuners and technicians listed in nearly every part of the country; they can be a great resource in finding a tuner right near you. Keep in mind that there is still a wide range of skills that registered piano technicians possess. I’ve met and worked with many tuners who are part of the guild and they are fantastic people with a passion for the piano.
Something you should be aware of is that a piano tuner is different from a piano technician. All piano technicians are piano tuners, but not all piano tuners are technicians. A technician will specialize in more advanced work like regulation, voicing, fine tuning, and other things while a tuner usually specializes in tuning and may have limited additional skill sets.
The most important thing is to find the right person for the job. If you are located in the Southern California area I will be more than happy to share my contacts with you – I also have connections in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin: Robert@LivingPianos.com. These videos are brought to you in part from our sponsor – VirtualSheetMusic.com
This is a very tricky question. You might have seen in other videos of ours that we recommend tuning your piano at least once or twice a year – How Often Should You Tune a Piano?. So you might assume that with light playing and a stable environment your piano should stay in tune pretty well with one or two tunings a year. But it’s not that simple.
For example, here at Living Pianos we record videos of our pianos and we have them tuned – typically a day in advance and if we are lucky, the day of production. Yet even with the tunings, I find myself compelled to touch up select unisons because the pianos aren’t perfectly in tune even after just being tuned! You might wonder how this is possible considering we have the instruments in a controlled environment and tune them regularly. With pianos, tuning is never perfect for very long.
Take a concert setting for example. Many times a tuner will be tuning a piano right before an artist goes on stage to ensure that the piano sounds as good as possible. When the performer actually plays the piano – and especially if they are playing virtuoso music – the tuning will get knocked out quite easily. My father Morton Estrin would have his tuner touch up the piano during intermissions in his performances. At his recording sessions he would have a tuner there through the entire recording session touching up the piano every time a single note would go out of tune which was regularly during the sessions.
If you have a piano that is kept in a stable environment and tuned regularly it will eventually become extremely stable and the piano will hold its tuning quite well. On the hand, if you neglect to tune your piano it will be harder to get it into tune and it won’t stay in tune as long. This is why having regular tunings for your piano is so important and where the saying, “You can’t tune an out of tune piano.” comes from.
The ideal situation is having a live-in tuner who services your piano every day! I understand this is not possible for the vast majority of people. In practical terms, you will be fine if your piano drifts out of tune over time. If it becomes bothersome you should call your tuner and get it back in tune particularly if it drops in pitch overall. But it’s not essential to tune your piano more than a few times a year unless the piano gets tremendous use as in a practice rooms, teaching studios or restaurants – or if it is a critical situation such as in a recording studio or concert venue.
So, pianos are constantly going out of tune and need periodic tuning to maintain pitch. This is one reason some people choose digital pianos which require no tuning.
Thanks again for joining us here at Living Pianos. If you have any comments or questions about this topic or any topic at all please contact us directly: Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
You may or may not have heard of the term pitch raise before but it is something that is very important when it comes to the condition of a piano. It’s nothing to be scared of but it is something you should be aware of, especially if you are looking into buying a used piano or haven’t tuned your piano in a long time. Maybe you have a piano that you haven’t tuned in years or maybe you just bought a used piano and assume that you’ll just get it tuned up and it will be ready to go. Then when your tuner arrives he tells you that you’re going to need a pitch raise; what does that mean?
Hundreds of years ago there were no established pitches. For example, an A on one piano would not sound the same as an A on another piano – pitches would vary quite a bit. Over time pitches stabilized and a standard pitch was established. Today the standard reference of pitch is A 440. That is the note that a symphony orchestra tunes to. But what does 440 mean? The number stands for vibrations per second of the strings and it’s the measurement of how many times the string is moving back and forth each second. If you double the vibrations of the string to 880 cycles per second, you also have an A, just one octave higher! It is the same principal for all musical tones.
So why is it a concern if your piano is not up to pitch? There are actually several reasons this:
One of the most common examples is if your piano is under pitch and you are playing with other musicians you will be playing in two different keys and it won’t work. Or at the very least you will be drastically out of tune with one another.
Another fundamental reason to have your piano tuned to concert pitch is that a piano is designed and manufactured to sound best tuned to a certain pitch. So if your piano has dropped in pitch, it will produce a very dull, lifeless sound.
So is it really that complicated to get a pitch raise? Actually, it is! There are a number of reasons why it’s a complicated and expensive procedure.There are about twenty tons of string tension collectively throughout the piano. Getting a pitch raise means that you will be adding potentially thousands of pounds more pressure onto the plate and the delicate wood parts of the piano; particularly the bridges and soundboard which could possibly cause problems. Worse than that, unless a tuner really knows what they are doing, they could end up breaking strings. So if you’re getting a pitch raise you definitely want someone who is experienced in this. Piano technicians must lubricate the points of friction on the strings if there is any corrosion.When you consider that there are over 220 strings on a piano and multiple points of friction, this is a job in itself! If the piano hasn’t been tuned in years the strings could have become tarnished or rusted melding into the pins and other parts of the piano. If you just tune it up you could end up snapping strings if you don’t take precautions.
Even in a best case scenario, if you tune a piano that needs a pitch raise without any major problems, you can’t expect the piano to hold its tuning. In fact, your tuner will have to do a rough tuning first then then do a fine, second tuning. But even the refined tuning won’t hold very long and you will most likely need to get the piano tuned again multiple times over the course of the next year or two just to get it to stabilize and hold its tuning. So how can you know if a piano needs a pitch raise? Luckily it is something that is fairly easy to tell if you have the proper tools. You just need a source of pitch: a tuning fork, a tuner that produces tones, or any instrument that you know is in tune. You can even use a tuning application on your phone! A lot of times the piano will not produce completely different notes – it will most likely be between two notes which still entails getting a pitch raise.
So make sure you keep your piano tuned up to pitch. You will enhance the tone and prolong the life of your piano.
