I am always happy to admit when I am wrong. Please enlighten me.
I have worked on pianos that haven't been tuned in 20+ years. They tend to bottom out around 100 cents flat. Do they take a couple of pitch raises and tunings to bring them back up to concert pitch? Yes. Was the piano permanently damaged by not being tuned? Probably not. It's still holding something of a pitch, just not what the world would consider 'in tune'.
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Anonymous2025-06-03 4:41
if time goes faster now then then, video of horses seem to be going faster (would)
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Anonymous2025-06-03 4:42
if time goes faster then, sound of string seem to be going faster (would)
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Anonymous2025-06-03 4:44
if time goes faster now, audio recordings then will seem higher pitched now than they should
Rick Vessell Former EngineerAuthor has 2K answers and 507K answer views1y Originally Answered: Does a piano still need tuning if it hasn't been played much?
I’d say eventually based upon my own experience. I’m in the happy/sad position of having 3 acoustic pianos, and not having time to play them all. My playing time is somewhat limited, and my time to tune them even more so. I generally tune if when I’m playing them they get a little drifty on top. That usually happens before it happens on the bottom for me. Oddly in the middle range where I play most it seems to happen the least.
So here’s where I’m at. I usually tweak in the one I mostly play every six months to a year. My ones I play less often, I can go a couple of years without to much problem. They do go flat somewhat over time. But usually rarely ever more than an a half tone in a few places, and usually less than a quarter tone.
Two of them are uprights, and they do seem to hold a tune better than my spinet.
Here is what I recommend. Get a cheap but decent tuner. I like my Korg CA-40 just fine. I know some folks use tuners on their phones. I haven’t done that so can’t really say how good they are. A cheap tuner most likely won’t read your extreme highs and lows well, but you can judge them by playing them in unison with higher keys.
Then check it periodically. If any of the pitches are drifting over a 1/4 tone, you should probably tune it, or have it tuned.
The other thing to watch for is when it gets howly. This is one string of the pair or trio gets out of tune with the others. That won’t read well with a tuner because its looking for a single pitch. If its doing that, it needs tweaking in. What you’re looking for, for one that sits a lot is the general trend. When you tune you actually mute the trios to a single string at at time.
Tuning is expensive, and time consuming if you do it yourself. If you like to play but don’t have a lot of time to do so, and don’t want t learn to tune it yourself. I’d suggest selling it, or passing your piano on to someone who wants to play it more, and do what’s necessary to keep it up. Then get a decent electronic. Make sure you get weighted velocity sense keys, an sustain. I prefer a full 88 key, but I’ve used less with out to much trouble.
I usually get 10 years plus from a decent electric, and you’re looking at probably around $500.00, maybe less I’m not really up on current prices. So that’s only 50.00 a year. Even tuning yearly your going to spend more than that just keeping your acoustic in tune.
One other thing I should probably mention, the above only really applies if they kept in relatively stable temperature and humidity conditions. As above if that isn’t an option, you want to consider passing it on to a healthier home. 656 views
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Anonymous2025-06-03 5:38
Related How is a piano tuned?
I’ve been a piano tuner for 33 years. A piano has over 200 strings, depending on the size of the piano. It usually takes me about 1 1/2 hours, but I ask for two hours of as quiet an environment as possible.
Most of the notes have three strings per note, so I mute the left and right strings of each group of three by laying a long red felt strip across the strings and pushing them in between each group of three with a small screwdriver. Now, only the middle string will sound.
Why? When you strike a key, three strings ring. Strike two keys and six strings will ring. You have to isolate strings individually.
I begin by striking my tuning fork, which is pitched at A440. That means, the A above middle C vibrates at 440 beats per second (not a typo!). I use my tuning hammer (which is really a special wrench) to tighten or loosen the middle string of that A until it matches the tuning fork.
From that point, I compare all the notes from F3 (F below middle C) to Bb4 (B flat above middle C). I adjust all of them so the octaves are beatless, the fourths are slightly expanded, and the fifths are slightly lowered. A4 to A3 is beatless. A3 to D4 is almost beatless, when compared with D4 to A4, which beat almost the same. And so on…back and forth, comparing each interval, so all octaves are beatless and all thirds increase slightly. F3 to A3 should beat at about 104 on the metronome, using every other beat. It took a few years of trial and error to get this right!
That range, F3 to Bb4, is what I get first. Traditionally, tuners would tune one octave from F3 to F4. That is the reference. It’s easier for me to add a few notes and go up to Bb4.
Then I tune down the piano, starting with E4 to E3, then Eb4 to Eb3, etc, all the way down. Then I tune up from Bb4 to Bb5, B4 to B5, etc, all the way to the top.
Then I pull out the red mute and tune the lefts and rights to the middles.
I usually have to do this two or three times, depending on how long it’s been since the piano was tuned last. If you are interested in more information, go to your public library and find Piano Tuning, Servicing, and Regulation by Arthur Reblitz. It’s the Bible of piano tuning. Good luck!
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Anonymous2025-06-03 5:48
BM in Piano Performance, Wheaton College, IllinoisUpdated 5y Related How often should you tune your piano or grand piano?
Graham Howe is right! It took me 100 tunings before I got up to awful and 1000 before I knew what I was doing.
With that said, I will now assume you are NOT thinking about doing it yourself but hiring a professional.
The answer is: it depends.
How stable is the environment? The more the temperature and humidity move, the less stable your piano will be. The overall condition of the piano. Believe it or not, but old uprights can be some of the most stable instruments around… that is because their soundboards are dead! New pianos will need more frequent tunings for the first few years. Your standards. My recording studio piano gets tuned every day it is used and then again after 2 hours. It is not unusual for a concert instrument to be tuned or touched up 3 - 4 times a DAY.
Your piano will begin to go out of tune before I even get out of your house, whether anybody notices is another matter. It will continue to drift out of tune until it is tuned again. Then rinse and repeat. The longer the interval between tunings the less stable the piano will be. The less stable the piano is, the quicker it will go out of tune.
So there you have it. The question then is how much you can afford and how much out-of-tuneness you can tolerate. 1.1K viewsView upvotes 1 of 8 answers Profile photo for Ron Brusky Ron Brusky Former MusicianAuthor has 232 answers and 148.9K answer views3y Related If a non-specialist tried to tune a grand piano, would they destroy the piano?
Well, I tried it. I’ve always paid to have this done, but after a couple of season changes it was becoming painful to listen to, and unfortunately we were at the height of the pandemic, so bringing someone in was problematic. I will mention the piano is not too old, not in bad shape, and it had not had time to go seriously below pitch, all situations which would have been well beyond my ability to deal with.
So, armed with a musician’s ear, a bit of equipment ordered from Amazon, some instructions off the internet, and an app downloaded to my phone, I gave it a go. An ear-numbing three hours later, how did it come out?
Actually, not too bad. You use the phone to tune one string of each note, then tune the other strings to match the first. Matching pitches is something musicians do all the time, so that was the easiest part. In the end, it certainly sounded better than when I started, and I think it was reasonably in tune.
Now, how well did it hold that tune? Poorly. One of the arts of piano tuning is not just getting strings to pitch, but doing it in such a way that they hold that pitch for awhile. I read about that, and tried it, but that’s very different than developing that skill over years of piano tuning.
So, in a pinch, in a pandemic, with all the caveats above, it’s possible. Otherwise, a good piano tuner is definitely worth the $100 - $250 they charge. 193 viewsView upvotes 1 of 8 answers Profile photo for Greg Livingston Greg Livingston Piano tunerAuthor has 280 answers and 197.5K answer views5y Related If a 1920 Mendelssohn baby grand piano has been restored (new strings etc), would there be any reason for a piano technician to use caution about tuning it to A=440?
It would depend on exactly what was done in the restoration. Were the bridges and soudboard replaced? Was the pinblock replaced? Was the plate removed and carefully inspected? There is no agreed-upon definition of exactly what is meant by “restored”. In 1920 when that piano was built, pianos were tuned to A435. The difference between 435 and 440 is about 5,000 pounds of additional tension on the structural parts of the piano; extra stress the piano wasn’t designed for. But having said that, I maintain over 20 grands at a music school and all are tuned to 440, even though some date back to the late 1800s. You should discuss this with your tech. 837 viewsView upvotes Answer requested by Jenny Leigh Hodgins 1 of 2 answers Profile photo for Edgar Maines Edgar Maines DVM from Atlantic Veterinary CollegeAuthor has 6.2K answers and 8.9M answer views2y Related How come it's so difficult to tune a grand piano on your own?
It’s not. It’s a relatively simple skill despite the near-universal mystique that’s built up around it.
Tuning a piano by ear and beat-counting is an occult skill, but my dad could get a pretty nice result by that method, and he wasn’t trained. He was just a kid in a small town without a piano tuner with a skill for tinkering and a decent musical ear, who tuned a piano about once every ten years in his adult life.
What makes a piano difficult to tune is the combination of stretch, tempering, and inharmonicity. Without going into what those terms mean exactly, the result is that you need to make a piano out of tune in a pleasing way, rather than simply in-tune.
With a device that senses the inharmonicity of your piano and works out a tuning scheme for you, so that you only have to set the pitches according to what the machine shows, all you have to do is tune the strings, which isn’t very much different from tuning any other stringed instrument. A novice attempting to tune a guitar with the help of an electronic tuner is probably going to make a bit of a mess of it, but learning to tune your guitar isn’t an improbable skill best left to experts. Tuning a piano is much the same. Of course there are ways to go astray, and you want to do a little reading or video-watching before setting to work, but it’s not a skill that’s outside of normal experience or ability. Compared to something like setting valve lash on an engine, or sewing sheer fabrics, it’s fairly easy.
Pianos are pretty human-friendly machines. They’re not like clocks, where your chances of getting it back together again are not that great. You often see stern warnings in response to this sort of question, claiming that you can ruin your piano etc. That’s really just hysteria, and generally comes from people who’ve never tried it but feel certain that if they did it would be a disaster.
At some point I’ll upload a file of my self-tuned Steinway to show that I’m not all talk. At the moment however it’s slumbering on its side with its pulled teeth out and sitting up on a shelf.
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Anonymous2025-06-03 5:49
Profile photo for Fred Haight Fred Haight Self Employed at Piano TuningAuthor has 99 answers and 50.1K answer views7y Related Does it make sense to take a free upright piano that has not been tuned in ~30 years with the goal of getting it tuned to A440?
Old uprights used to sell for a decent amount. Now it is hard to give them away. The condition of the instrument determines whether it is even worthwhile for you to pay to move it and tune it. They are not really free.
As for A440, that depends on a lot of things.
Do you want A 440? Many people today are returning to the Verdi pitch of A 432. Some of the older uprights may have been originally tuned to the lower pitch, and the artificially elevated A440 may have never suited them, even when new. What is the condition of the strings? If you see rust around the strings and tuning pins you will likely break some strings pulling it up to 440.
3. How far off is it? If it is no more than a half-tone flat you may be OK. The further down you are than a half tone from A 440, the more likely you are to break strings as you pull it up.
4. Are the tuning pins loose? You find that out in tuning but there are two clues beforehand. If the piano is really low, say by a third, the pins are likely loose. If any one note sounds really bad, that is because the unison is off, and at least one of the three strings that form that note probably has a loose pin. Loose pins mean that you may have to tune it twice. and you might have a hard time keeping the pitch from slipping. Repinning a piano is expensive.
5. Many tuners try to pull pianos up to A 440 because they do not know that A 440 is an unnatural elevation. They just think that it must have been meant to be. I often suggest the lower tuning, especially for older pianos. If you are playing by yourself, it will be fine. If you have friends with string instruments, they can easily adjust. Singers should be grateful. If you are playing with wind instruments, or along with a recording, you might run into problems, but otherwise A 440 is higher than the pitch the greatest music was written for, and a piano that has not been tuned in 30 years, might react to it like a human being would to a steady diet of Red Bull.
Hope that helps. 6.6K viewsView upvotes View 1 share 1 of 9 answers Profile photo for Greg Livingston Greg Livingston Piano tunerAuthor has 280 answers and 197.5K answer views5y Related Do pianos become untunable when they have not been tuned for long enough?
So much depends on the piano. Pianos have over 200 strings, depending on the size and style, and each string will have at least 160 pounds of tension when the piano is tuned to A440. Over time, the tension will naturally drop. Pianos are made of many wooden parts, all glued, screwed, and bolted together. Over the years, everything under tension will relax. I have tuned pianos that hadn't been tuned in decades; I remember being told once that the piano was bought in the 1950s and had never been tuned. As long as the strings haven't rusted around the tuning pins, and as long as the bridges haven't split, a piano could probably be tuned. It would take several turnings to become stable. If the pin block is split, or the tuning pins are loose, the piano probably won' be tunable without a lot of major work. Your local tuner can tell you. 1.1K viewsView upvotes Answer requested by Hamid Ali 1 of 4 answers Profile photo for Edgar Maines Edgar Maines DVM from Atlantic Veterinary CollegeAuthor has 6.2K answers and 8.9M answer views2y Related How can a grand piano be tuned quickly and accurately (without removing covers)?
There shouldn’t be any covers to remove, for tuning. Right? Unless you have some really unusual design the tuning pins are right there in plain sight. Or unless you call propping up the lid or sliding off the music desk “removing a cover”. You need to be able to get at the strings to mute them, which is really awkward to do without propping the lid.
To tune it quickly and accurately (not much point in inaccurate tuning) you call a good piano technician.
You can tune it slowly and fairly-accurately with PianoMeter, a bit of how-to reading and/or watching, and some practice. After you do it some you’ll speed up.
There isn’t any other short cut that I know of. Someone, surely, has invented a tuning machine like some guitars have, that will grab onto the pin and crank it around for you until that string is just-so, but it would be a complex thing and likely not commercially practical. Getting the tuning pin to stay where you wanted it after removing the torque would mean ‘feeling’ the clicks as the base of the pin moved in the pin block, and automatically backing up and trying again if the pin wouldn’t set at the desired pitch. You’d still have to pound the keys to help set the pins. And at the end of the day it would be slower than a tech. Nevertheless it seems certain that someone has done it, because it’s just the sort of thing that engineers do in the evening if they have a piano in the house. 301 viewsView upvotes 1 of 1 answer Profile photo for Jason Davies Jason Davies Concert Piano Technician / Master Rebuilder at Fifth Octave, LLC (2016–present)5y Related Do pianos need to be tuned every time you play?
Pianos do not need to be tuned each time that they are played. Though, they do not sound as good as time goes on.
Changes in humidity effect wooden components in the piano. Meanwhile, temperature effects the metal components. The two can also compete as opposing forces and make a tuning bad.
As a pianist plays a piano, they are adding tension against strings. They could knock loose the tuning if they play hard.
A 1 degree temperature change will effect a tuning. Taking a felt piano mute and rubbing a string will cause it to warm up and the pitch to drift. When it cools, it will return near normal.
Pianos stay in tune according to the environment. Humidity and Temperature make the difference. There are secondary factors too. The soundboard and bridge vs the much thicker rim. Often you’ll see inexperienced technicians tune a piano and a week later they sound terrible. This is the secondary drop. Weather is everything.
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Anonymous2025-06-03 6:01
Profile photo for Silas Ferreira Silas Ferreira Have an interest in how instruments work5y Related How is a piano tuned?
There’s a lot of tools that go into tuning an acoustic piano and unlike most other instruments, a digital tuner is the lesser of all. The most important tool you need to tune a piano is a trained ear. But I’ll make a list of tools commonly used and what they do.
The hammer or lever:
It works like a wrench and is used to turn the tuning pins (a metal piece at the top of the piano’s metal frame around which the string is wrapped) ever so slightly, to go up or down in pitch. Normally you start from below pitch up to perfect pitch to get to a good tension point. Note that for most notes there are three identical strings that have to be tuned in perfect unison, on the lower mids there are 2 strings per note and only on the lowest notes is there only one string per note.
These are tuning pins:
The top part has a four-sided shape where you anchor the tuning hammer, which has a corresponding socket. In this picture you can see the hole through which the string is fed and then it’s wrapped around the pin up to tension. The blue part goes into the frame and is hidden when assembled. If you open up a piano you’ll only see the top part of the pins.
A tuner:
This is a strobe tuner, by Peterson. Not all piano technicians use such a fancy machine. In fact, I know a piano tuner who has used an old Boss TU-12H for all his life. It needs to be accurate but you don’t use it for every note. You might use it just to check the exact pitch every time but not always for reference. I’ll get into that later. A tuning fork can also be used but I’ve never seen any technician do that.
Mutes:
These are small wedges that can be made of felt or rubber and sometimes have a metal extension to place or remove more easily. Many technicians make their own because rubber is readily available and they usually have felts of different colors and thickness with them for repair and maintenance. They’re used to isolate strings from each other so they don’t resonate, especially for the notes that have 2 or 3 strings.
You can also find pencils, pliers of different kinds, felts, rubber, scissors, box cutters, wire cutters, spools of wire, tuning forks, small flasks with graphite and gold paint, a soldering iron, hooks, handles, sheets of laminated plastic, pieces of leather, bits of lead and a bunch of other accessories and utilities in a piano tuner’s tool box. All of it is helpful when tuning a piano because oftentimes they’ll have to make small repairs.
Now, the process of tuning a piano can have different approaches. This is the one i’m most familiar with.
First, you’ll start at the middle A, or A4, which is the note A to the right of the middle C (C4). This is the note that is commonly tuned to 440 Hz nowadays. But sometimes it can be tuned to 441, 442, 438… It depends on the personal preference of the piano player, the music to be played on a particular performance, that specific piano’s reaction to time and humidity, the season and the room’s characteristics. This is where a digital tuner comes most handy.
Then you tune all the A notes up and then down, leaving the uppermost and lowermost octaves behind. Then you go up a perfect fifth from A4 and start tuning E5 and all other E notes, then a perfect fifth from that, and so on. All the time checking to see how notes sound against each other, especially octave and perfect fifth intervals. A good trained ear is essential because all of this relies mostly on perception.
Then you tune the highest and lowest octaves of the piano, based on how they sound in relation to the rest of the piano. Of course you can use a digital tuner and tune those notes to a mathematically determined pitch but I can almost certainly guarantee that it will sound off.
Finally, you play some tunes on the piano, or ask the player to do it and make any necessary adjustments.
This is a long process. A seasoned piano tuner can take two hours or more to tune a piano. It’s physically and psychologically stressing because you’re in uncomfortable positions, reaching in the piano and back to the keyboard, applying tension and bombarding your ears with the same frequencies and timbre all the time, trying to detect the slightest imperfections in pitch. It can be exhausting.
I hope this was helpful and I’m looking forward to see what other approaches people have to tuning a piano.
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Anonymous2025-06-03 6:04
Profile photo for Greg Livingston Greg Livingston Studied at Boston ConservatoryAuthor has 189 answers and 22.2K answer views2y Related How long does it cost to tune a piano, and how is that done?
Piano tuner here. I charge $140. I don’t tune spinets anymore. Here is how I tune.
In uprights, I open the top and take off the front panel. In grands I raise the lid and remove the desk.
More than half the notes have three strings for each note, so if you press one key, you’ll hear three different sounds.
I use three lengths of thin red felt strips to mute off the left and right strings of every note, allowing only the middle string to vibrate; one note, one string.
I tune aurally (no electronics) so I strike my tuning fork and compare that tone with A4 (A above middle C). I tune that note so it matches.
The next part involves magic, sorcery, and wizardry that we tuners love to discuss…I tune what is called a “temperament”, tuning the notes between F3 (F below middle C) and A4 (A above middle C) in a particular pattern so that all 4ths are raised slightly, all 5ths are lowered slightly, all octaves beat evenly, all thirds rise evenly; F3-A3 beats about 7 BPS and all subsequent thirds beat slightly faster.
When I’m happy with the progression of those notes from F3 to A4, I pull out that red mute and tune the left and right strings (haven’t been tuned yet) to the middle strings (already tuned).
Then I mute the whole piano to one string per note, repeat the process, and tune all the unisons.
IF IF IF you are interested, IF you are dextrous, IF you are patient and humble, you can learn to do this. Just go to your town library and find a copy of Piano Servicing, Tuning, and Rebuilding by Arthur Reblitz. I will promise you two things…it is a factor of 10 more difficult than you think, and it is very rewarding.
But if you are in doubt, call a professional piano tuner…then watch carefully.
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Anonymous2025-06-03 6:10
Related How much does it cost to get a piano tuned?
A couple of considerations include:
The condition of the piano and its history of completed tunings (or not). If the piano must be pitch raised (not merely “in tune with itself), this can increase the cost and time involved.
I have paid between $80 and $200 for piano tunings (2 different instruments tuned twice annually over the past four years).
>>40458877 >be rod of uranium suspended in aluminum >place in beaker of water >add curved mirror of beryllium >elementally transmute uranium into cesium and iodine with a beaker of water and a mirror >Magick is for schizophrenic retards and it doesnt work
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Anonymous2025-06-04 4:26
Anonymous ID:/q9EORt1 Tue 03 Jun 2025 23:32:40 No.506338982 Report Quoted By: >>506339067>>506339872 >>506338779 There is nothing better than learning everything about the world for the first time, when your brain is fresh and sensitive to it, even though it seems hard and overwhelming at the time, unless you are an NPC who spent all of their youth socializing with other NPCs and now you spend your days socializing with adult NPCs while having responsibilities, still knowing nothi