tune your own piano?

[Jimbilly]

We've got an old 'apartment grand', about an octave around middle C is fairly close, the outer ranges sound not so good.  I'm glad they don't require re-stringing as often as guitars.  I imagine it's not impossible with a decent tuner, should I give it a shot? 

[kizanski]

@Jeff R has some insight.  

[JGale]

Ooooooo…better off doing your own root canal. 

[tbonesullivan]

This is one of those things you really need the right tuning wrench, a very accurate tuner, and a LOT of patience.

[velorush]

And, as I've discovered, it's not like getting A to 440 across all octaves.  There's a temperament to be obeyed across the scale.  I agree with @JGale, try the root canal first. 😅

[tbonesullivan]

5 hours ago, velorush said:

And, as I've discovered, it's not like getting A to 440 across all octaves.  There's a temperament to be obeyed across the scale.  I agree with @JGale, try the root canal first. 😅

Yeah, they had a piano tuner where I went to college, who spent 20 years setting up and tuning pianos at Steinway before that. It's an art, and there is so much that goes into making every note on the piano sound just as good. I also think sometimes the higher and lower strings are tuned a bit differently.

So it apparently takes 2-5 years to learn how to properly tune and service a piano. You really can't do one without the other, and I've heard some piano techs will refuse to work on a piano if they have seen it's been "boogered up", kinda like some amp techs will look inside an amp and realize someone did horrible things, and turn down the job.

[hamerhead]

It's probably faster to gut the thing and replace the innards with the electronic equivalent. It'll be a helluva lot lighter, too.

 

ETA: I borrowed a keyboard buddy's tuning tool thing to try and tune the piano my wife's Gramma had given her. It's a fairly inexpensive console model that weighs approximately 3 tons. (How do I know it weighs 3 tons? My brother and I moved it from this house to our first house, and back again 10 years later when we bought this house from her Mom.)  I was then informed by several people who actually know how to tune a piano to run away. We hired a guy for $75.

My wife wouldn't let me replace the mechanical workings with electronics ("It was from my Gramma!") so now it sits out-of-tune and unused, collecting photographs of family members and dust. We do, however, have a nice portable Yamaha on a stand in the basement. It plays in tune every time.

[JGale]

You should give it a shot. Be prepared for adversity. May the fourths be widue. 

[Disturber]

A co-worker of mine tuned his piano last year. Apparently he does it whenever it needs a tuneing. Said it was not that hard.

[hamerhead]

Sure, but is it listenable?

[velorush]

10 hours ago, hamerhead said:

It's probably faster to gut the thing and replace the innards with the electronic equivalent. It'll be a helluva lot lighter, too.

We have an old baby grand at church that wasn't that expensive when purchased 40 - 50 odd years ago. We have a guy that comes from an hour away to work on it now and then. This guy rebuilds vintage Steinways in his spare time. Last time he was in I happened to be there working on some FOH stuff and we struck up a conversation. When he learned I worked on my own guitars, he proceeded to show my how similar the piano was to a guitar, specifically showing me the worn-out bridge on our piano. It's more or less done for - he performed some short-term fixes, but the bottom line is, the piano is not worth the cost of replacing the bridge.

There are many in our church who are fond of the aesthetics of the big black polished piece of furniture, but who would absolutely not spend the money to replace it with even its inexpensive equivalent.  My recommendation is to push it forward about two feet and put a Montage or Fantom on a stand (it's all behind a banister) and roll on.

[Disturber]

36 minutes ago, hamerhead said:

Sure, but is it listenable?

The guy is a technical engineer. Super meticulous in everything he does. So, yeah, I expect his work to be 100% acurate.

[DaveH]

"Do it", they said. "It'll be easy", they said. 😂

Seriously, if you have a good strobe tuner, it seems like it would be pretty straight forward *AS LONG AS* everything else is in good repair. But, what do I know.

[Devnor]

My Father (RIP) was a piano teacher and he tuned pianos when his students were in school. He tuned Van Cliburn's personal pianos and for artists that came thru town. He was meticulous about the 4 grand pianos we had in our home.  My Mother also taught. On weekends, early in the morning, I would hear him tuning those pianos.  I believe my sense of pitch was in part from all those listening sessions. He used tuning forks exclusively.  He'd wack the fork, stick it on the heel of his shoe and make adjustments. When I got my first Peterson strobe tuner, I let him borrow it. About a week later he rings me up, come get your tuner.  He felt it was more time consuming to be focused on the display and his ears were more accurate with the stretch.  Although he constantly denied it, I felt my Dad had perfect pitch.

His Steinway is in my home now.  The guy that tunes the piano also uses pitch forks. 

[scottcald]

When I was a sound engineer in theatre, we had a guy who'd come to tune up pianos for shows or special events and rehearsals if they wanted to use the upright.  This is what the guy did every day and every one of them took a minimum of an hour but most often two to three as he'd also examine the action to make sure everything was working properly.   I wouldn't do it, but I don't have that kind of patience.  

[The Shark]

On 6/24/2024 at 11:39 AM, scottcald said:

When I was a sound engineer in theatre, we had a guy who'd come to tune up pianos for shows or special events and rehearsals if they wanted to use the upright.  This is what the guy did every day and every one of them took a minimum of an hour but most often two to three as he'd also examine the action to make sure everything was working properly.   I wouldn't do it, but I don't have that kind of patience.  

Like mulching beds in your yard.  Have someone else do it. Thank me.

[HSB0531]

On 6/19/2024 at 7:28 PM, tbonesullivan said:

Yeah, they had a piano tuner where I went to college, who spent 20 years setting up and tuning pianos at Steinway before that. It's an art, and there is so much that goes into making every note on the piano sound just as good. I also think sometimes the higher and lower strings are tuned a bit differently.

So it apparently takes 2-5 years to learn how to properly tune and service a piano. You really can't do one without the other, and I've heard some piano techs will refuse to work on a piano if they have seen it's been "boogered up", kinda like some amp techs will look inside an amp and realize someone did horrible things, and turn down the job.

I think the only thing that requires more patience tuning, is a pipe organ. 

And for me, listening to just one note all day was sheer torture.

[Jeff R]

My son tunes and repairs/restos pianos for a living in Denver for two stores serving different piano consumer demographics, aka new and used at all price points, and he tunes for private clients.

He learned the craft and art of piano tuning (reread that phrase several times and let it sink in) by taking one-on-one lessons over a year from a very reputable and respected semi-retired professional tuner, in a non-competing market. His mentor has a national reputation for turning great "piano player" ears into great "piano tuner" ears, according to my son. They remain in contact despite the actual course concluding, and they confer as needed.

Joey strongly recommends you hire that reputable tuner in or near your market, that one person everyone seems to hire.

He told me to emphasize the job is more than the proper tuning tools and tensioning strings to pitch, and at least as much if not more can potentially go wrong as can potentially go right.

And paying a pro from the onset for superior results at what is a routine job for him ... is a fraction of what reversing a go-wrong at the hands of a novice could cost.

Because I see similar and expensive DIY-gone-bad scenarios weekly on my fretted repair workbench, I echo my son's advice.

[BruceM]

[Jimbilly]

2 hours ago, Jeff R said:

My son tunes and repairs/restos pianos for a living in Denver for two stores serving different piano consumer demographics, aka new and used at all price points, and he tunes for private clients.

He learned the craft and art of piano tuning (reread that phrase several times and let it sink in) by taking one-on-one lessons over a year from a very reputable and respected semi-retired professional tuner, in a non-competing market. His mentor has a national reputation for turning great "piano player" ears into great "piano tuner" ears, according to my son. They remain in contact despite the actual course concluding, and they confer as needed.

Joey strongly recommends you hire that reputable tuner in or near your market, that one person everyone seems to hire.

He told me to emphasize the job is more than the proper tuning tools and tensioning strings to pitch, and at least as much if not more can potentially go wrong as can potentially go right.

And paying a pro from the onset for superior results at what is a routine job for him ... is a fraction of what reversing a go-wrong at the hands of a novice could cost.

Because I see similar and expensive DIY-gone-bad scenarios weekly on my fretted repair workbench, I echo my son's advice.

I imagine someone with that sort of ear accuracy has a hard time listening to amateurs on any instrument, or they have to learn to 'turn off' that part of their brain when listening to inaccurately tuned people or instruments.  I'm going to ask for "Van Halen 1" tuning, "because it sounds better" and see what the tuner guy says.