DIY Piano tuning

timboZ

New member
How hard or easy is it?
What tools are needed?
How do you do it?

I know it is an art, but is it something that I can do.
 
The two most basic tools are a tuning hammer and the little rubber stopper shaped like a mini door stop.

I use the tuning hammer on my piano to tune up notes that slip. I don't attempt to tune the whole piano, just the few notes that need touch ups. That gets me from one tuning to the next, when my tuner comes in.
 
If you have a nice piano and you like the way it sounds - hire a tuner. For a little less than the price of a piano tuner, you can get a small kit that has a decent tuning hammer and some rubber mutes.

My piano was free from Craigslist and sounded terrible so there was nothing holding me back from trying to tune it myself. Rather than use a traditional tuning fork, I setup my keyboard to play a continuous sine wave for each note I was tuning. I would tune each string on the piano using the sine wave..

This worked OK but I soon realized why piano tuning was such an art. The low and high octaves had to be tuned by ear and this was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and when I was done the middle of my piano had dropped slightly in pitch due to the tension of the low and high strings.

Right now my piano is in tune with itself but is slightly flat if analyzed by a guitar tuner or something. I went a step further in damaging it and stuck tacks in all the hammers. By ruining the piano a little more than it once was I now have an awesome one of a kind piano that sounds really cool and way better than it could without the tacks.



But yeah. Just read my first sentence, if its a piano you care about and paid money for.. leave it up to the pros!
 
if it's your own piano. definitely learn with that one.

if its really out of tune, you'll have to do it a couple times, especially if you're new.

try to not turn the pin too much. slow turns keep your pegs healthy.

my first time tuning i tuned just the middle couple octaves. just tune the middle string to your tuner, and then later tune the outer 2 strings to the middle one by ear.

you have to do the extreme octaves totally by ear.


the last time i tuned my piano i only tuned 1 string to the tuner. i used a series of perfect 4ths and 5ths to cover all of the notes in the octave.

after i covered all notes of the octave, i played some major thirds and chords to see if everything was okay...then i moved on to the next octave until i reached the end of the piano.

fifths and thirds work better for the middle and upper registers. fifths and octaves work for the lower - mid region, and octave tuning is best for the low low section.

it is extremely difficult to pay such close attention. i would do it when no one is around. so they don't annoy you, and you don't annoy them.

you have to really really really hone in on the beats and harmonics that the unison strings are creating. you'll hear a phased sort of sound if its not right.

your first times tuning you'll hear the obvious ones, and after a while, you'll get really into it.

it's very very difficult, and professionals will do it under 4 hours. i would advise you to do it in shifts your first time as it will take hours longer than that.

and it may still be out of tune. i know mine was.
 
I wonder if piano techs typically have a much higher rate they charge to tune a piano where the owner tried to do it first and couldn't? :)

Seriously, I have also found benefit in having a piano tech come and regularly tune the piano, not only because the time it would take me is worth more than our current piano is worth, but also because a competent tech can identify and in some cases correct other problems, such as problems with the action that can be almost as annoying as tuning woes.

Cheers,

Otto
 
ok .... first off ..... I've been a piano tuner for some 35 years now and in Baton Rouge, where I had lived my whole life, I tuned 3 to 5 pianos a day 6 days a week; week after freakin' week for about the last 20 of those 35 years. I moved to Florida partly to get away from piano tuning and it's already starting to pour in. I tuned and rebuilt and did any sort of repair except finish work which I learned to do but hate. I had about 2500 churches on my account list and maybe 1000 individuals.
So ...... I know my shit when it comes to pianos ....

ummm a piano tuner will tune a piano in about 90 minutes ...... maybe 2 hours if the piano's horrible or if the customer talks while you work.

If it's really bad you'll have to do it a hell of a lot more times than twice if you're not a tuner ...... basically like 40 or 50 times 'till you finally give up and hire someone or convince yourself that it sounds ok.

You don't have to worry about turning pins slowly ....... you're basically not going to do anything that'll hurt the pins .... if they're too loose to hold though, then forget it ..... a non-tuner isn't gonna be able to deal with that.

If it's 1/2 step low it'd take me three tunings to get it up and stable ...... it'll take you until the glaciers melt and reform.

If it's around standard pitch (A-440 in the states) then you might be able to do a not terrible awful job of it and you're not likely to harm anything as long as you take your time. If it's an old piano however, breaking strings is always a possibility .... hell, it's a possibility on a new piano. So if you break one you'll get to learn how to replace it.

You can't really get a good tuning doing it in shifts because as temps change and the piano expands and contracts .... the different length and gauges and wound or unwound strings behave very differently and you'll end up with different sections of the piano needing very different things done to correct.
But a beginner almost has to do it in shifts 'cause they don't want to sit there for 4 or 5 or 6 hours straight.

If you care about how it sounds, you should just get a tuner and get it done.
I've seen an awful lot of musicians try to tune their own pianos. They had good ears and thus, felt they could do it. I've never seen one get it sounding good ever, because it's not hearing the notes that is the hard part. The problem is 'hammer technique' .... that is, 'feeling' when that pin has set. When you first start pulling a string higher, the pin doesn't move.... you just torque it and the first few times you play it .... that torque lets go and you're out of tune. A piano tuner can feel when the pin has set and that's the biggest skill.

Usually it takes 4 or 5 hundred tunings before you get decent and those master level tuners .... well, 10 or 15 or 30 years.
I think you should get a tuner to do it but if you decide to try .... feel free to ask me anything you need to know, I'll be glad to help.
 
your experience is blinding you.

if he can get a piano perfectly in tune in an hour and a half...then he's jesus of piano tuning.

a complete tuning of every string will take a while.

he needs to do it in shifts because it will probably go out of tune a little anyways, and since he's not great at it, what's the big deal?

if he was a professional..obviously it wouldn't even enter his mind of taking a break. the break is good for your ears. its like coming back to a recording mix.

if he's set up a piano in a place that's going to change horribly in temperature, then its going to be out of tune no matter what. keep it away from direct air conditioning/heating vents, and keep a decent room temperature, and he'll be fine.

a constant temperature for a few hours isn't unheard of.

you don't want any jerking actions of your hammer. the pegs in my piano are just smacking into a giant piece of wood. and its a good 100 years old. it's not like a guitar tuner with 2 gears locking it in place.

ever tuned a violin too quickly? you'll break a string. same with piano. too much too quickly is bad.



and what happens when all the piano tuners die???

just to tell someone that takes interest in tuning pianos to give up is not a nice attitude.

having interest in tuning is not a common thing. and even more so when people like you discourage them.



TUNE YOUR PIANO AND PRACTICE AND LEARN. KEEP AT IT AND ENJOY IT.
 
First off I didn't suggest he could do it in 90 minutes ...... I was referring to your comment that professionals could do it in under 4 hours. That's incorrect ..... a professional will do it in 90 minutes and if I'm in a rush I can do it in an hour. When you said "under 4 hours" that seems to me to imply that it might take close to 4 hours. That's not the case. No professional would ever take anywhere near that long...... about 90 minutes .... maybe 2 hours ..... that's it.

Second ....... I didn't have a bad attitude at all ...... I absolutely told him that he wouldn't harm anything by trying and I also said that if he chose to do so that I'd be glad to help him ..... where exactly is the bad attitude in that? I gave my honest opinion on how likely it was in several different situations that he'd be able to do a good job ..... if it's 1/2 step low he'll have an almost impossible time getting it up to pitch .... I also said if it's close to pitch he could possibly do a not too bad job. Once again, where's the bad attitude in that?
I several times told him he won't likely harm anything and go ahead but I gave him some idea of which situations would have a more or less likely chance of success.

And you're giving incorrect info ....... it's not like a violin other than in the fact that the pins are held tight by friction. He won't harm anything regardless of how he jerks or doesn't jerk on the pins unless you're talking about standing up and yanking on the hammer as hard as you can and I'm sure he won't do that.
You will not increase the likelihood very much of breaking strings by how hard he pulls on the hammer ....... strings break when they break and if a string's ready to break ...... you can pull on that hammer as slowly and as easy as you want and it'll still break. Believe me, I've tried. I mean, I make money replacing strings but my schedule's usually so tight that I just hate breaking strings and having to change them so I've tried everything to minimize it. I've even twice seen strings break for no reason at all even when I was just standing there talking to the customer and hadn't even touched the piano ..... :eek: and I had at least one customer woke up in the middle of the night by a string breaking. All 3 times were fairly new expensive grands.

I gave him my opinion as to which situations would be more conducive to having success and offered my help any time he needed it.
You, on the other hand, are telling him things that are flat out wrong and telling him not to listen to someone who's been one of the busier tuners in the nation the last 20 years.
Who's giving him the worse attitude?

Some of the things you said regarding temp. fluctuations driving a piano out of tune are correct ...... but some of what you said is wrong. And, once again, I offered (and still do) to help him if he tries. I didn't discourage him at all by telling him he wouldn't hurt anything and go ahead.
And you're right, piano tuners need to come from somewhere ...... but they will have to find a place like a piano store where they can tune lots of pianos because it does take 100's of tuning before you are a competent tuner ...... whether you like it or not. And lastly, how is he or anyone else supposed to learn if no one that really knows what he's talking about gives him any help?
Learning something new requires hearing both the good and the bad.
 
oh ...... and BTW ......5ths and 4ths are not tuned 'till they're beatless ..... they should have about 3 beats in 5 seconds. They shouldn't be tuned perfect if by that you meant no beats. There should be 3 beats in 5 seconds for 5ths and 4ths.
 
i'm not alone in pin care.

the piece of wood won't hold the pin well if you don't treat it well for 100 years.

its right in that link someone posted.
"
Tips about this process:

* Proceed slowly. Stretching a string too quickly can break it, especially an old string. If the string is really far out, you may want to tune it in several steps, allowing it to rest a few minutes between turns. (Thanks to a reader for pointing this out.)
* Take care turning the pin. Twist it gently without bending it, and don't wiggle it side to side in any way. Work the pin as little as you can (you'll get better with practice.) Too much twisting and wiggling can loosen it; a loose pin will keep slipping out of tune. Rough technique may permanently loosen pins. Loose tuning pins will need to be replaced by a professional.The technique of turning the pin as little as possible, especially on the final tuning movement, helps to "set the pin." Setting the pin means to lock it in place so it does not easily slip out of tune. This is where practice comes in. The better the tuner, the better he or she is at setting the pins, and the longer the piano holds tune. As a novice, your piano probably won't hold tune as long because of this important skill. "
 
That's NOT what setting a pin is in the first place and if you actually read my posts you should have noticed that I mentioned setting the pin as one of the main things that needs to be learned. Simply turning the pin slowly will not set the pin ...... period. It's a matter of feeling when the pin's not simply torquing but is actually moving in the pin block. A good tuner can feel it when the pin moves and he can feel it when it hasn't actually moved but has simply torqued.
Look, you yourself said that after you put all that time into it your piano was still out of tune. That's exactly the same thing I told him.

I'm not gonna get into an argument with you over this. I've tuned between 25,000 and 30,000 pianos in my career...... I've tuned for symphonies .... tuned for rock bands .... tuned Lionel Ritchies piano ... tuned U-2's piano ..... tuned for the symphony with Blood Sweat and Tears ...... I've rebuilt dozens and dozens of pianos and repaired thousands. I've pulled more pianos up to pitch than you'll ever see in your life and was widely known as the only guy around that would and could work on antiques and square grands and even 'bird cage' action pianos..
You don't want to listen ....... that's fine, I don't care ....... keep posting links that'll help him have his piano still out of tune when he finishes like your was.
But don't accuse me of discouraging him when I didn't really do so .... I simply gave him some facts and just 'cause you can find some quote on the 'net doesn't suddenly make you an expert. I know a whole lot more about tuning than you do ............ period.
And I told him to go ahead and I'll help. He can figure out who can help him or not.

Oh, I just noticed in that quote you posted that it said that if the string is way out that you might choose to tune it in several steps ........ that's wrong ........ period. You go ahead and yank the thing up and then it'll drop back a bunch which you'll take care of in subsequent tunings.
Once again, believe what you wish and refuse to learn ..... all the same to me.
:)
 
like tuning a violin?

when you tune a violin using the peg tuners, you over tighten slightly and then get it to where it needs to go, and you must have a feel for the tension of it. they have a tendency of unraveling.

i'm guessing this method combined with a certain feel for how it rested when ending the turn and the turn itself is what you're talking about.

i never mentioned setting the pin. i was just saying the general treatment of the pin because you said "He won't harm anything regardless of how he jerks or doesn't jerk on the pins "

he won't the first time. tune it twice a year for a good while, and i'm guessing you can mess up something.

though i am totally going off of what's been passed to me, and not directly from 40 years of experience...i'm just saying, this is what's been taught to me...so i regard their experience as something.
 
Yes, setting the pin is very much like what you've described for getting a violing in tune. But it is a bit harder because the tuning peg in a violin isn't held so tightly that the peg will twist or torque like they do in a piano. And it's complicated by the fact that you can't see the pin so you have to simply feel it in the handle of the tuning hammer.
but yes ...... that's essentially what setting the pin is
 
oh ...... and BTW ......5ths and 4ths are not tuned 'till they're beatless ..... they should have about 3 beats in 5 seconds. They shouldn't be tuned perfect if by that you meant no beats. There should be 3 beats in 5 seconds for 5ths and 4ths.

Thanks for the info, Bob, this was interesting. Like Sonic Albert, I've occasionally tuned the one note that goes flat, but other than that I pretty much leave it to my piano tech. And I pretty much leave him alone when he works! I'm curious, do you tune octaves exactly in tune all the way up and down the range of the piano?

Cheers,

Otto
 
yeah. i noticed that when you tune with the thirds and 4ths and 5ths, you can't do it perfectly in there, or it plain won't work once you play a couple chords.

you gotta get it so each interval sounds good.

imo 100% ear gets the job done better than the tuner.
 
I used to tune entirely by ear after the first octave, and I found that while I could get the stretch reasonably well, I frequently found myself having to spend several evenings playing on the piano, hearing a chord that just didn't sound quite right, tweaking the note, then playing for a while longer and hearing something else. On the average, it took a couple of weeks of tweaking to get it exactly the way I wanted it.

A few weeks ago, I tuned it again and got so annoyed that I bought a piece of stroboscopic tuner software with the ability to program in your own custom stretches. I then told it to do equal temperament with my own stretch curve, and after I'd gotten the curve plotted, it took only three or four hours to bring it up from sounding pretty wretched to IMHO the best it has ever sounded.

It's amazing how better a piano sounds when one small mistake early in tuning doesn't compound itself. That means that in the worst case, you might have one or two notes that you have to tweak at the end instead of screaming obscenities as you realize that every E is a couple of Hertz flat starting at the octave above middle C and going up.... :D
 
Question Lt Bob, I have a spinet piano, the dude who tuned it last time put it at 420, I am now having it re-tuned to 440, problem being its the same guy and only piano tuner in my little NW Fl town, hey...he is telling me that pianos are tuned to 420 for home setting...I think he is full of shit on this and just doesn't want to put forth much effort, and just collect my money. I understand (?) it may go outta tune after awhile because of stretch or whatever raising the strings...is this guy bs'ing me or what? I just want the piano tuned so others can jam along in the studio....at 440 (concert pitch?) I'd appreciate any comments on this. 87PRS
 
He's full of crap.
A 440 is the standard whether you're playing at home or Carnegie hall (well ..... Carnegie hall might request A 442 for some players)
He probably doesn't want to deal with it.
Thing is ....... that's just enough of a pullup to make it a bit of a pain. It's hard to justify asking the customer to pay for a second tuning when it's that close and many tuners aren't that good at salesmanship and don't like to have to spend maybe an hour explaining to the person why it'll quickly go out of tune again ....... but it's enough that if you just tune it ...... it'll go out quickly enough that they'll be calling you back because "your tuning didn't hold"
So the only thing you can do if you want your customer to be happy and recommend you to others etc. etc. is to take an extra chunk of time and get it up and stable or you risk having them tell people that you're a bad tuner.

The reason that pianos go out of tune when you pull them up (or down if they're high ..... that's even harder) isn't string stretch. It's because you add tension to the piano. For example ...... if I were to pull up a piano that's 1/2 step low (much more than yours) I'd add about 6,000 lbs of tension to it. That's enough, iron plate or not, to compress the piano thus detuning it.
Even worse ..... it starts as you go along so the very first strings you tune are affected the most and the last ones ..... almost none.
Plus .... shorter strings ...(the high C is only a couple inches long) are affected very diiferently than a big ol' several feet long bass string.

Personally, I would tell a customer in your situation that it's not gonna hold very well this time and it should be tuned again withing 3 months. I'd carefully explain the process (even though lengthy explanations take time=money) and then they'd do whatever they did. Some would call in 3 months and have it done ...... some would make the appointment right then and I'd just show up in 3 months, ..... many wouldn't get it done thinking it sounded fine as it was. VERY many people can't be convinced to tune their pianos even yearly.
But I had over 3,000 customers and can only do maybe about 1,000 a year so I basically did my job well, took time to explain and then didn't think of it after that. Whether they tuned it or not I was overloaded anyway.

So for whatever reason he doesn't want to deal with it but he's absolutely wrong about A420 although that's a fairly creative excuse. :)
But the fact that he told you that means either he doesn't know what he's talking about ( plenty of crappy tuners out there that spout off nonsense) or he's lying to avoid pulling it up.
In either case, that'd make me want to find a different tuner.
Where in Fl are you?

Now ..... there are times when I will tell a customer that there's no need for them to have their piano at A440. If it's 1/2 step low but it's a little old lady that ONLY plays hymns all by herself for fun and will never ever play along with any other instrument ever ...... then why should she pay extra dollars to have it standard? It'll be just fine as long as it's in tune with itself. And despite some peoples' claims ...... if I do a really good job of tuning a piano to itself, 99% of the people on this board would play it and have no clue that it was 1/2 step low unless they tried to play with someone else.
Also, occasionally I'll see a piano where the strings are so rusty that pulling it up dramatically increases the chance of string breakage. And at $20 a pop .... a few strings isn't too bad ..... but 50 of them adds up!
But anytime a piano is gonna be played with anything else ..... it has to be at standard pitch.
 
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