Piano tuning may not always be quick and easy. However, if you want to keep the piano healthy, whether you use it or not is necessary. If you’re going to sell your piano, its value depends on its health.
Piano tuning is the fine-tuning of the tension of the strings of an acoustic piano to correct the spacing between tones to keep the instrument in tune.
Therefore, regular piano tuning is worth it, whether from the point of view of use or piano preservation.
When should I tune my piano?
Setting the piano tuning to four times a year is ideal: once a season. But now, twice-yearly adjustments have become the accepted norm, depending on your studio environment.
Four or twice a year
Four times may seem like a lot, but a piano is a stringed instrument, and stringed instruments are inherently off-pitch.
Tuning every three months allows the piano to return to its original state after climate change and intensive playing, a consistency that ultimately extends its lifespan.
Biennial adjustments require good timing and luck. This is especially true in regions experiencing four seasons.
For example, suppose the adjustments are made in September after the hot weather and humidity subside. In that case, the dry conditions created by indoor heating in October or November may cause piano imbalance. If you live in a stable climate, it is also ideal for adjusting every six months.
Benefits of regular tuning
1. A normal piano tuning can prevent serious injury
A piano is a complex instrument; if a part of it is subjected to low standards, the device’s overall quality is compromised. An improper adjustment can be a symptom of another problem, and an irregular string can be the most annoying indicator that you need to make a whole adjustment.
Regular piano tuning also prevents damage. Correct (and constant) string tension is important for the health of many fine piano parts. Tuning helps these parts work smoothly and prevents damage to adjacent parts.
If your piano has been in use for two years or more without adjustment, corrective action may be required. Here are two common steps you can take to fix a serious bug fix:
- One is the pre-tuning process used to prepare the strings to be tuned. If incorrect, the technique can hurt the sound of the piano, sacrificing proper string vibration to produce a rattling or rattle if the strings interfere.
- A double adjustment is a general overall adjustment before a fine-tuning. The first adjustment is crucial because the tuning process itself can cause a slight misalignment of the strings; to begin fine-tuning would be a serious waste of time on seriously misaligned strings.
To prevent this problem in the future, please find out how to adjust the frequency of your piano according to your specific situation.
2. The more the piano is tuned, the less likely it is to be out of tune
After a few normal tones, you will notice that even if you skip an adjustment, the pitch is not as easily (or often) out of tune as it used to be. However, it will depend on the health and quality of your instrument and the climate of your piano room.
3. The piano tuner can notify you of problems
Some problems are invisible, so pianos often require professional observation to prevent minor issues from becoming major damages.
But not all piano tuners are piano technicians and vice versa. If you want your piano to take a closer look, find a trained piano repairer, such as Yamaha, Steinway, Bechstein, and other companies of registered lawyers.
When putting together an ideal adjustment schedule, consider the following:
- Local Weather
Extreme weather is bad for pianos, but fluctuations in temperature and humidity are often worse. The piano’s soundboard is particularly sensitive; it expands or contracts depending on temperature and moisture, causing the associated strings to lose a pitch.
If you can keep your environment in the ideal state of stability and constancy, you can reduce the adjustment twice a year.
- Consider the level of piano use.
A frequently played piano requires frequent tuning. The piano is used at least three times a week and needs to be adjusted every three months. Users for public performances should change at least once a week.
Six months is plenty of time for problems to arise for a moderately used piano, but generally not enough to cause irreparable damage. If you play once a week or less, tuning twice a year is acceptable.
Piano tuning Tips
In the context of piano tuning, the word “Harmonic” means more than just a set of fixed pitches. Fine-tuning requires an assessment of the vibrational interaction between notes, which is different for each piano and therefore requires an angle slightly different from any academic standard.
In all tuning systems, each tone can be derived from its relationship to the selected fixed fashion, usually A440, above the middle C (261.626 Hz) note A.
Piano tuning is done by a variety of independent piano technicians, piano shop technicians, and amateurs. Professional Training and certification can be obtained from organizations or piano manufacturers such as Steinway, Yamaha, etc. . Many piano manufacturers recommend tuning pianos twice a year.
A variety of factors contribute to piano maladjustment, especially atmospheric changes. For example, changes in humidity can affect the pitch of a piano; high humidity causes the soundboard to expand, stretching the strings and sharpening the rise, while low humidity has the opposite effect.
Temperature changes also affect the overall tone of the piano. In newer pianos, the strings gradually stretch, and the wooden parts compress, causing the piano to flatten. In comparison, the tuning needle (keeping the strings tuned) may become loose in older pianos, and the piano’s tone can not be maintained. Playing often can lead to piano disorder.
For these reasons, many piano manufacturers recommend adjusting the new piano four times in the first year and rearranging it every two years after that.
A piano that is out of tune can usually be judged by its keys sticking together, its voice vibrating, and so on. This fluctuation in sound intensity results from two (or more) tones of the same frequency working together.
For example, suppose a piano string is tuned to 440 Hz (vibration per second) and tuned to 442 Hz together. In that case, the resulting tone pulsates at a frequency of 2 Hz, a function of the wavelength between the styles and the cancellation interference.
Similarly, if a string tuned to 220 Hz (440 Hz harmonics) is played with a string tuned to 442 Hz, the same 2 Hz rhythm is heard.
Since piano strings usually have more than one string, the pitch of the notes is determined by the vibration frequency. For vibrating strings, the frequency is determined by the string’s length, mass, and tension. The piano string is wound around the adjusting needle, which is rotated to adjust the pressure of the string.
To maintain the accuracy of the piano tone and its annual maintenance, the piano must be regularly maintained by a professional piano tuner.
