Tag Archives: piano tuning

What can you do with a Piano that Can’t be Tuned?

This is a very common question. Many times when people want to sell a piano that has been in the family for a long time, they don’t know where to start. When we receive calls from from people in these types of situations, we always ask them the last time the piano was tuned.

The reason we ask this is because pianos need very regular maintenance. The longer they go without tuning or other work, the more problems they might incur. It’s certainly possible that if a piano sits in the right climate for a long period of time and remains untouched it could need very little work, particularly if has been tuned on a regular basis. For a piano that has been in a home where the temperature and humidity have affected it over the years and the owner neglected to tune it on a regular basis, it can sometimes put undue stress on the instrument trying to get it stable again.

Sometimes pianos can’t be tuned. No matter how many times you try and tune them they will continue to go out of tune or simply can’t be tuned at all. Many times this means the piano has to be rebuilt because there is most likely an issue with the pin block which can’t hold the tuning pins tightly. The pinblock is a multi-laminate piece of hardwood custom shaped to the plate of each piano that sits right below the plate.

In order to replace the pinblock you have to remove the strings and pins and then use a crane to lift the plate out of the piano. Then a custom pinblock must be made for the specific piano – which is a very skilled job. This involves substantial expense and not something you will want to embark upon with just any piano. Rebuilding costs thousands of dollars and is only worthwhile on worthy instruments.

So what do you do with a piano that has loose tuning pins and isn’t worth the rebuilding costs? Luckily there are a few things you can try to see if you can salvage some more life out of the piano. The simplest solution is to tap in the pins a bit further into the pinblock to get more friction. There must be some room between the coils of the strings and the pinblock to allow for tapping. This can sometimes alleviate tuning problems. Other times it can only be a temporary fix depending upon the integrity of the pinblock. This is something that can only be done by an experienced piano technician or irreparable damage can be inflicted upon the piano.

If that doesn’t work you can have the piano restrung with fatter tuning pins. Every time you restring a piano you have to put a little bit larger tuning pins into the pinblock in order to get them to stay securely in place. If the pinblock is in good shape, this can solve the problem in some instances. This is a bit more expensive than tapping the pins down but less costly than rebuilding. If the pinblock has cracks, using larger pins will just enlarge the cracks. Also, there is a limit to how large a tuning pin can be used in a piano.
As a last resort I have heard of people trying super glue in the pins! This isn’t to lock them in place, but to add friction to the tuning pins. I would not recommend this unless you have absolutely nothing to lose because the piano is not worth rebuilding.

Something to keep in mind is that if you have a piano in a humid environment that has pins that are slightly loose, moving the piano to a desert climate can make the pins looser and you may have serious tuning problems.

So depending on your situation there are a number of options for a piano that can’t be tuned. If you have a piano that is valuable like a Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, Bechstein or other high-end piano, then it might be worth rebuilding if other structures of the piano are sound. With low end pianos that can’t hold tuning, you may be better off seeking out another piano.

I hope this has been helpful for you. Thanks again for joining me Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Does Moving a Piano Make it Go Out of Tune?

This is a very common question I get all the time. Pianos are very temperamental instruments and they need to be cared for fairly well in order to have a long life. That’s why it’s not surprising that popular wisdom has everyone thinking that as soon as you move a piano it has to be tuned. But is this really the case?

Keeping a piano in tune is a constant challenge. As I’ve stated in another video, there is actually no such thing as a perfectly tuned piano, it’s a fruitless pursuit. So does moving it really affect the tuning in a negative way?

The first thing you have to take into account is whether you are moving a piano across a room or to an entirely new location and environment. If you’re moving a piano across the room by pushing it you probably won’t need to tune it right away. We move pianos around our store every day and it doesn’t make them go out of tune. But what about if you are moving a piano with professional movers?

If you’ve never witnessed a professional piano move it’s quite a complicated process. It often requires 3 people or more, putting a piano on end on a grand board, loading it onto a truck, wrapping in blankets and securing it to the wall of the vehicle. If you have to move a piano from one location to another there is really no way of getting around it; you’ll need a professional piano mover. Risking injury to yourself or the piano is not worth saving the cost of a piano move.

But what about when the piano arrives at its new location? Will it automatically be out of tune? – not right away. The move is not what will make a piano go out of tune; it’s the new environment which will affect the instrument’s tuning. Today many piano trucks are climate controlled to help keep the stability of the instruments inside. Pianos used to be moved by horse and buggy and even this wouldn’t necessarily knock the piano out of tune. A long-term change in temperature or humidity is what will gradually make a piano go out of tune. Sometimes the piano can drop or raise in pitch and you might not even realize it. The most important thing for a piano is stability and if it drops in pitch it may take several tunings before it can become stable again.

So yes, if you are moving a piano from one location to another – no matter if it’s right down the street or across the country, it will eventually need to be tuned. However, you may not have to call your tuner right away. If there are no issues, you may let the piano sit and acclimate to its new environment for a few weeks before you get your first tuning. Tuning the piano sooner won’t harm it, but you will probably have to tune it again once the piano settles into its new location.

If you have any more questions about pianos or moving pianos please feel free to contact me. Thanks again for joining us, I’m Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Piano Questions: Can Chord Clusters De-Tune a Piano? Refinishing an Upright Piano

Can playing successive, heavy chord clusters detune a piano?

I’ve heard that it can, but find it hard to believe that chord clusters could cause more problems than something like a Rachmaninoff or Liszt Etude.

Thank you,
Julie

It may seem amazing that playing chord clusters could de-tune a piano! However, it isn’t the particular sonorities that cause the detuning, it is the sheer force of sound that can flex the soundboard, thereby altering string tension slightly. In fact, one technique that concert level tuners will sometimes employ is after finishing the tuning of a piano, closing it, putting down the sustain pedal and playing as many keys as possible with the arms on the keyboard to generate huge sound. This will help to hasten the de-tuning of strings that may not be solidly set. The tuner can then re-tune the offending notes and have a piano that may endure the strength of a concert pianist’s performance without having the piano go out of tune quite as much since the most susceptible notes have already been corrected.

Hello Mr. Estrin,

Love your youtube channel! Thanks for the tour of those fabulous pieces of history. I have a few favorites.

Quick question. I have a near 100-year-old Nordheimer upright piano and I just adore the sound from it but the piano frankly looks like it was beaten with an ugly stick. I have some woodworking skills and was considering stripping off the old cracked glaze and spraying on a colored high gloss latex paint for some color cause it couldn’t look much worse than it does now. I know where the soundboard is so if spray all the other non-moving cabinet will this ruin my piano’s sound? I will not go anywhere near the soundboard.

Thanks for any advice you may be able to offer.

Sincerely,

Brandt

So glad you appreciate my videos! As for the piano, you shouldn’t underestimate the massive amounts of work it takes refinishing a piano. If a had a nickel for every half refinished upright piano I have seen, I could probably buy a nice Steinway! The piano has to be disassembled to a large extent. It shouldn’t hurt the instrument if it is done correctly.

Good luck!

What is Piano Regulation, Voicing, and Fine Tuning?

This question encompasses quite a bit of information, but it has value in presenting it all in one video – as these topics have a lot to do with one another. They are all essential when it comes to getting the most out of your piano and making sure it plays its best. Each one of these subjects can be incredibly detailed, and I may create more detailed videos and articles for each one of them – but for now, I will provide an overview of all three!

First, we will deal with Regulation. Regulation encompasses the myriad adjustments on the action which is the entire mechanism from the key to the hammer and dampers. Each key in the action has about 100 parts. There are approximately 8 different adjustments for each key: from key height, key depth when depressed, let-off of the hammer after it’s struck, to other details of hammer movement, and other adjustments affecting repetition, power and more.

The basic explanation of regulation is getting an evenness of touch for all of the keys on the piano. In other words, all 88 keys should have an equal touch when playing – no key should be harder or softer than another; no key should be higher or lower than another; the response must be identical for all keys.

When it comes to Voicing, it’s the same principle in keeping a consistent state for all notes. However, voicing deals with the tone of the piano, not the mechanics. Every key should have a consistent sound from one another. If the touch is the same but specific notes are brighter or more mellow in tone, it is impossible to get a smooth musical line since some notes will be out of place in the melody, either not matching volume, or tonally different in some way.

How is voicing achieved? Through working the hammers to get a consistent volume and tone from all keys. The felt on the hammers needs to be accomplished to get consistent tone on all notes. Several things affect the hammers including the shape, how it impacts the strings, and the hardness.

There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into voicing a piano. For example, if the hammers on some notes are too hard they will need to be needled; if they are too soft, they will need to be treated with chemicals, typically lacquer. This treatment will need to be performed on each hammer, and the response of each string within each note should also be uniform in tone.

Last we have Fine Tuning. A piano can be tuned, but there is something referred to as concert tuning. A concert tuning encompasses not only making sure the tuning is pure but making sure it will stay in tune! It’s not nearly as easy as it sounds. Fine tuning will require a technician to pound on the keys and make sure the piano won’t go out of tune even with a tremendous amount of force of a concert pianist playing virtuoso music.

I’ve also seen tuners who will fine tune a piano and then close everything up, hold down the sustain pedal, and then hit all the keys with their arms to excite the soundboard. The hope is that the strings can be reset securely to hold during the performance.

The truth is, there is no end to how far you can go with a piano. You can continue to make finer and finer adjustments and never really reach a real level of perfection. Like one definition of infinity, you can get halfway closer to perfection again and again with diminishing returns on time spent.

If you have ever had the opportunity to play a piano after it has been voiced, regulated, and fine-tuned, you will never want to play anything else! It really is that big a difference on a great piano.

Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com: Robert@LivingPianos.com: 949-244-3729

When to Tune a Piano – How Often to Tune a Piano

When a piano is in tune such as the glorious instrument in the accompanying video, you hear the beautiful tone, and you may wonder when to get your piano tuned. How do you know when it’s time to get your piano tuned. It’s not as easy a thing as you might think. So I’m going to liken it to a couple of different things. If any of you play guitar, you know that every time you take it out, you tune it up. In a perfect world, you would do the same thing with your piano! Since there are over 200 strings to tune, it’s not practical.

So there are certain guidelines much like with your car when you get the oil changed, you have an odometer reading, but there’s also a date. So even if you don’t drive your car, it’s still recommended you change the oil periodically. The same thing is true for your piano. Your piano might sound fine to you, but maybe it’s been a year or two since it’s been tuned. It’s very important to get it tuned because the whole piano could shift up or down and might sound good within itself but the instrument will not be able to hold the tuning without several more tunings to get the pitch stable again.

The Piano Technicians’ Guild recommends a piano ideally should be tuned about four times a year, a minimum of twice. Why is that? It’s very simple: the change of seasons affects the tuning of your piano. Even if you don’t play your piano, it’s got to be tuned a minimum of a couple of times a year and in most climates four times a year is close to ideal. If you play the piano a great deal, every time you play, it goes out a little bit – especially if you’re a strong player and practice a great deal. You might even consider monthly tunings of your piano. You might think this gets very expensive. But in the long run, like changing the oil in your car, the more you tune your piano, the better you preserve the instrument and the more stable the tuning becomes.

You never save money by putting off tuning. So here’s what I recommend for you. If you are a casual player and you’ve got a stable environment for your piano, put it on your calendar to get it tuned at least twice a year. If you’re tuning it just once a year, you’re going two steps forward and two steps backward because your piano over time will not be stable. If you do it twice a year, you might stay on that cusp and at least will not be going backward in the tuning stability. You and your piano will appreciate more tuning, and in the end, you will save money because your piano will become so stable that the tunings will hold longer for you. So that’s the long and short of it and thanks for joining us! info@livingpianos.com

When to Tune a Piano – How Often Should you Tune a Piano?

If you play the piano you know there is nothing better than sitting down and playing a piano that is in tune. Unfortunately, tuning a piano is no easy task. It’s extremely difficult to learn how to tune a piano on your own – it takes tuners years to master the skill – and it can also be pretty expensive (ranging anywhere from $50-$200 or more depending on the tuner and where you live). With this in mind, how often should you tune your piano?

In a perfect world, you would have a tuner living next door and they would come over every day and keep your piano in tune. Because pianos start going out of tune right after being tuned simply by being played. How often you should tune your piano depends upon several factors:

Stability of the environment

keep a piano in a stable environment

Pianos are pretty temperamental instruments and require a decently stable environment to be kept in tune. Like most string instruments, the temperature of the room can drastically affect the tuning of the strings. Unlike most string instruments, pianos will rarely leave the room they are placed in. Keeping your room at a constant and comfortable temperature is one of the best ways to ensure your piano is kept in tune.

 

How much the piano is played

playing a piano makes it go out of tune

Naturally, the more you play your piano, the more it will go out of tune. From the second your piano is tuned, it will start to go out of tune – and playing it only makes it worse! For the average player, they probably wouldn’t notice their piano slowly going out of tune as they practice every so often.

I play the piano every day and actually had to learn how to spot tune notes in order to keep my piano in playing condition. I have the luxury of having piano technicians in the store almost daily and can have them tune my personal piano on a pretty regular basis. This is not the case for the majority of pianists.

If you play your piano every day you might want to think about monthly piano tunings.

If you play your piano a few times a week you could probably get away with 4 tunings a year – one for every change of the season.

If you play your piano a few times a month you then you might be able to have it tuned as little as one or two times a year.

 

Level of refinement required

piano technician working on a piano

The piano has hundreds of moving parts and eventually, they will break down and need to be refined, repaired, or even replaced. All sorts of small problems can lead to your piano going out of tune more frequently.

This is a complex topic and as such should be discussed with your piano tuner or technician to see if they recommend any proactive measures to keep your piano in good shape.

Thanks again for joining us here at LivingPianos, if you have any questions about this topic or any other please contact us directly: info@livingpianos.com (949) 244-3729