Saturday, June 8, 2013

Do You Really Have to Wait Two Weeks to Tune Your Piano After it is Moved?

Well, that's what the textbook says, but the reality of what goes on out there in the piano service world, you may be able to cut that corner.

When the piano tuner finishes tuning your piano, it starts to go out of tune on a micro-scale within a few hours. Slowly, the top end goes out along with any strings that may have loose tuning pins and after a while, it's completely "out" again.

In  another case, where a piano has had several strings replaced, the tuner will stretch these strings and then tune them. In a few weeks, these strings will tend to go out of tune first. The tuner is called by the customer and comes out to tune the piano again and charges the customer again for another tuning.

In a third situation, the piano is placed near the front door in sunny Montreal, Canada is tuned and goes out of tune quickly as it gets a sub-zero draft a couple times per day. In some cases, the piano can be moved to a better location in the room, maybe an inside wall, farther from the front door. But in this case, "Aunt Sally" likes the piano right next to the front door because she can look out the window at the snowflakes as she's playing, "Winter Wonderland."

You see, after four piano tunings in under two years, a decent piano in good shape will "stabilize." It is at this point, and only at this point, will you as a piano owner get to enjoy a well-tuned piano for six months at a time.

Don't expect your piano to stabilize after you tune it once, two weeks after the movers leave.

Where am I going with this?

Right here:
In my opinion, the sooner you tune your piano four times within a two-year period, the sooner it will stabilize for six months at a time.

So, don't bother waiting two weeks. Just call your piano tuner, schedule your first tuning and then make sure your piano gets tuned every six months, every year, all the time and the world will be a better place.

"Tune it forward?"






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