Please contact us if you cannot find an answer to your question.
Keeping your piano in tune can vastly improve your playing experience. A properly tuned piano trains your ear and helps you recognize when you hit a wrong note. Plus, it’s just much more pleasant to listen to! A piano is designed to sound at its best at ‘concert’ pitch (A440), with the correct amount of tension on the strings. Additionally, pianos that are tuned more regularly tend to STAY in tune! It is also noteworthy that pianos that fall into a state of neglect often experience damage and disrepair that can be irreversible.
The recommendation is schedule a piano tuner 1-2 times per year, depending on the amount of use the piano gets as well as the environment the piano sits in.
Frequent and hard playing can cause pianos to go out of tune. But, even if a piano is not played, it still goes out of tune (much like a violin or guitar that is left in its case). This is because the main structure of the piano is made of metal and wood, which expands and contracts due to the day to day changes in temperature and humidity.
Begin by monitoring the humidity level near your piano with a hygrometer. Piano manufacturers recommend keeping pianos in an environment with relative humidity levels of 40-60% and to avoid extreme changes in humidity and temperature (the ideal humidity for pianos is 42%). This consideration is particularly important during winter and extended cold weather episodes when heated rooms can become extremely dry. If the humidity level drops too low, the wood in various parts of your piano is prone to cracking.
If the general humidity levels are found to be too low, stand-alone humidifiers can be used, but these require frequent filling and maintenance. Another option is a Dampp-Chaser "Piano Life Saver" climate control system. These systems are installed directly inside the piano to regulate the humidity level and only need occasional refilling.
Tuning a piano is the process of adjusting the tension of approximately 230 strings over 88 notes to the correct pitch. Because the piano has so many strings and a total of over 20 tons of tension, it can be hard to make it “stable” (stay in tune). This is because sometimes as the strings are adjusted, one string may move out of adjustment because of the tension change. This especially happens when you have not tuned your piano in several years, but can also happen even if you have tuned your piano recently. To overcome this the tuner will need to perform a pitch correction.
If the pitch of a piano is far from the desired final pitch, the strings will not stay at pitch during the first tuning. So, the tuner will likely opt to tune the entire piano quickly one time, bringing it close to the final pitch (by pitch raising or pitch lowering), and then tune the entire piano a second time so that any notes that may have moved since the first pass can be corrected. If a piano is left too long in between tunings, it may even require three tuning passes to achieve a stable pitch.
The average tuning takes approximately 1.5 to 2 hours. If a piano is very far off pitch or hasn't been tuned for many years, it will require two (or even three) tuning passes during the first service call and a follow-up visit shortly thereafter is recommended to stabilize the tuning.
Yes! Piano tuning is only part of the equation. Voicing, or improving the tone, is just as important to your piano’s ultimate sound quality. This has to do with the firmness and wear of the hammers and several other factors. There are also other many other regulation-related factors that affect how your piano feels under your fingers.
We accept e-transfer, cheque and cash payments.
We serve all of Winnipeg as well as the surrounding Northeast communities, including West St. Paul, East St. Paul, the Lockport and Narol areas, and into the RM of Springfield (Oakbank, Dugald, Anola, Hazelridge, Cooks Creek, Tyndall, Garson and Beausejour).