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