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Piano Pages
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Having your piano tuned - essential information
Lecturer in Piano Technology, Royal National College
(Last updated March 2007 )
See also
Buying a piano - essential information
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General interest: see also: |
Special interest: | |
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What is the theory of piano tuning ? The place of piano tuning theory
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Why are pianos tuned to Equal Temperament and what is it? What makes a piano string vibrate ? On falseness and paradigms for the nature of piano tuning On scales, tone, pitch (and piano tuning)
with interactive media : The piano tuner-technicians' area
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Books:
Theory and practice of piano tuning
BTEC Advanced Diploma in Piano Action Regulating
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Does the piano need tuning - and how often ?
What makes the piano go out of tune?
I'm told my piano is false - what does this mean?
Can I do the tuning myself ?- tuning with an electronic meter (ETD)
What is the difference between a tuner and a tuner-technician ?
About the qualifications and training
Without regular tuning any piano will steadily deteriorate in condition. The piano is an instrument with well over 200 very high tension strings, designed for equal tension to be maintained across each string section. If tuning is neglected, the increasing inequality of string tensions will have physical consequences, and accelerate some of the deterioration normally associated with ageing of the instrument. The condition of a ten year old piano, for example, will depend not simply on whether or not it is tuned now, but how regularly it has been tuned over the past ten years. Merely having the piano tuned now, will not restore the instrument to the condition it could have been in, had it had a history of regular tuning.
From the time it is tuned, to the time of the next tuning, the tuning condition of any piano will deteriorate. Some pianos will suffer tuning deterioration faster than others. Pianos are not like violins and 'cellos and many other instruments, as far as the age of the instrument is concerned. A modern, robust, quality piano in a temperate climate will generally hold its tuning well, to most domestic standards of expectation, with six-monthly tunings. Where the requirements are more demanding, such as for professional standards of expectation or for teaching, more frequent tuning will be necessary. Like any other musical instrument relying on tensioned strings, the piano must be tuned frequently. A violin is typically tuned every time it is taken out of its box to play. Compared to any other stringed musical instrument, six months between tunings on a piano is an enormously long time, and it certainly does not represent an ideal.
If it has been more than six months since its last tuning, then a piano almost certainly needs tuning. Even if the piano is never played, then tuning a minimum of once per year is still necessary. In a temperate climate, a minimum of four tunings per year is still the best recommendation for pianos in domestic situations, if the piano is to be kept in optimum condition. Steinway recommend three or four tunings a year, at least, for Steinway pianos, which are amongst the best pianos in the world.
It is sometimes thought that playing a piano will keep it in tune. This is not literally true. Playing a piano keeps the action in good condition, but of course causes more wear on the moving parts, than not playing it. Playing the piano will actually tend to cause the instrument to fall out of tune - but this is good for the instrument provided it is then tuned again. The cycle of playing and tuning keeps the overall tuning condition stable. If an instrument is left without being played or tuned for some time, it may stay in reasonable tune because it is not being played, but as soon as it is played again, it will probably fall out of tune more rapidly than it would have done, if it had been both played and tuned over the same period.
The situation is comparable to growing lawn grass. The best grass is grown by constant feeding and cutting, feeding and cutting. The best tuning condition is achieved by playing and tuning, playing and tuning.
Tuning is not simply a matter of how the piano sounds, with no other consequences. Tuning reflects the physical condition of the instrument - a poor tuning actually constitutes a fall in physical condition. Remember that as a piano stands in a poor state of tuning, its optimum possible tone and tuning gradually deteriorates. In almost all cases, waiting until the piano is obviously out of tune to the normal (untrained) ear, and then calling the piano tuner, will be tuning the piano long after it actually requires tuning. This is rather like waiting until a car begins to give trouble, or breaks down, before arranging to have it serviced.
What makes the piano go out of tune? Even in a new piano in "perfect" condition the following applies: The piano has over 200 high tension strings, pressing on the bridge and soundboard. The soundboard looks flat but is actually arched or "crowned" outwards towards the strings. The strings are angled towards the soundboard as they pass over the soundboard bridges, so that they collectively push against the elasticity of the soundboard "crown" with a force known as "downbearing". The whole structure, strings plus soundboard, is therefore in a state of elastic equilibrium. The soundboard is sealed with varnish, but it is still affected by changes of temperature and humidity, which can alter the "crown" and hence the equilibrium with the strings' "downbearing" force. As soon as the soundboard crown alters with temperature and humidity, the tension in the strings can change slightly and hence a tuning change can take place.
Modern, quality pianos, are manufactured from materials that enable the piano to cope effectively with the effects of central heating. If your piano was built before the 1960s it will not be designed to withstand central heating. Relatively few pianos have ever been designed for an intended lifetime of more than 50 years. Many pianos are still in use, that are effectively well beyond their intended lifespan. Pianos do not improve with age in the way 'cellos and violins do. Beyond their initial period of use, pianos deteriorate with age, and this deterioration results in a gradual loss of tone quality, and loss of tuning stability. On many older pianos, the wrest plank or pin block which holds the tuning pins is in less than perfect condition and will contribute to the piano being unpredictable in its tuning stability. Changes to the structural properties of the soundboard and bridges also contribute to tuning instability and tone deterioration on older pianos.
The best strategy for trouble-free piano use is to buy a quality, new piano. Even so, if you live in a climate that is not temperate, you can still expect that there may be issues in tuning stability, and action efficiency, that demand more frequent tuning and servicing.
There are four major factors determining how your piano sounds.
Firstly, there is the manufacturing quality of the piano. As a rough overall rule, when buying a piano "you get what you pay for". Pianos vary enormously in quality and it is simply not sensible to expect a piano in the "domestic" price range to sound like the top quality concert instruments you are likely to hear on CDs. Obviously you cannot buy £90,000 worth of musical instrument quality for a mere £2,500.
Secondly, there is the tuning. Many people mistakenly think of tuning as simply adjusting the pitches of the strings. In fact, tuning is mostly about tone and intonation, which is not the same thing. The best tone and intonation that your piano is capable of producing will only be brought out by appropriate tuning. However, the best tuning in the world will not be able to make a cheap piano sound like an expensive one, or eliminate weaknesses in the piano's tone and tuning characteristics.
Thirdly, the condition of the piano is important. Age and wear cause deterioration not only in the action, but also in the tone and tuning quality of a piano.
Lastly, the acoustical environment can have a major effect on how the piano sounds. No piano is perfect, no matter what the manufacturer may imply, or what myths and reputations may prevail. Pianos are musical instruments, and as such they each have individual characteristics, strengths, and foibles. On the one hand, imperfections in an instrument can be entirely lost in a large, live acoustic. On the other hand, even a top quality instrument will have any imperfections cruelly exposed if it is placed a confined environment like a small room.
A piano is a musical instrument. All musical instruments have characteristics, some of which are noticeable, but indefinable. Much of how the piano sounds does not come down to it being "right" or "wrong". It is often a matter of characteristics and musical expectations.
I'm told my piano is false - what does this mean? The word false in relation to pianos refers to the sound produced by the strings, or by certain strings.
The tuning and tone quality of your piano depends on the sound produced when strings are sounding together. Only in the lower bass of the piano are there single strings for each note. Everywhere else there is more than one string to each note. When strings are "out of tune to each other" you hear it as poor tone - the individual notes sound "out of tune".
Unfortunately, some individual strings sound, completely on their own, rather like two strings that are "out of tune to each other". Changing the tension on the string has little or no effect. Such a string is called a false string, and the effect is called falseness. It is a relatively untuneable feature of the piano's sound.
Falseness is not, in fact, an "all or nothing" effect. It is a question of degree. Practically all piano strings are false to some degree, but not necessarily to the degree that you would notice. When the piano tuner notices, he or she will simply regard the string as false and try to work with it, usually without even telling you about it. When you notice, you might not like the sound you hear, and will probably assume it could be improved with "better tuning".
It is true that highly skilled aural tuning involves the ability to "handle falseness" in a positive way. Nevertheless, falseness is something that is present in all pianos to some degree, and it is part of the characteristics of the piano itself - not of the tuning.
Falseness is not necessarily a "fault", although it can be caused by certain physical faults. It is a feature of every piano. Most musical instruments with strings have foibles that the owner has to live with, and pianos are no exception.
Don't jump to the conclusion that you just need to change the string. Falseness is not necessarily due to a string fault. The acoustics of falseness is more complicated than that. Remember that whilst the strings in your piano are the source of the sound you hear, the sound itself is dependent on the soundboard and bridge structure.
The term 'piano tuner-technician' A piano tuner-technician is qualified to both tune, and repair / regulate the piano action, and many tuner-technicians will be able to rebuild an entire instrument if necessary. Blind or partially sighted tuners may be limited in the repairs they will be prepared to undertake, but may still be piano tuner-technicians. There are some piano technicians who do not tune.
Just as a trained musician or artist relies on proper technique, so the artist tuner uses techniques also. For the musician or artist, technique is essential, but only the beginning - the rest is art. The same is true for the artist tuner.
The piano is a musical instrument designed for music, not just a box of strings. There are essentially two musical qualities of the piano that the expert aural tuner adjusts in fine tuning. These are the same musical qualities that are important to the musician. One is intonation, and the other is tone. In piano tuning the two are interrelated, and the relationship between them is complex. Both are important and each must be adjusted with regard for the other. The artist tuner takes both into account as part of the art, through practical and theoretical knowledge of piano tone and its acoustics.
Expert aural tuners are artist tuners. They become experts through a very wide experience of tuning a very large number of different pianos. Like people, no two pianos are precisely the same in their musical characteristics, even if they are the same make and model. Artist tuners understand this. No two pianos have precisely the same tuning and tonal characteristics, and these differences in characteristics are not just of the sound or tone itself. Even more importantly, they are mechanical differences :
Some of the largest differences between pianos, lies not in the sound, but in the mechanical characteristics of how the string tensions change in response to tuning. Every string passes over a number of friction points, and has different tensions in different parts of the string. This means that different parts of the string slip over the friction points at different times, the resulting behavior being far from simple.
In order to for the finest tuning to be reached, and in order for it to be stable, so that subsequent hard playing does not simply change it, this mechanical behavior of the string must be properly controlled and exploited. This is called setting the pin. Setting the pin is the art of controlling the connection between fine changes in the audible sound, and the complex way the tension in the string changes in relation to movements in the tuning pin. Without setting the pin, the different tensions in the various parts of the string between the various friction points, will not be set up correctly, resulting in tuning instability. In setting the pin, not only is tuning stable, but the process itself enables finer tuning.
The idea that piano tuning is simply about getting the notes to the "right pitch" is an urban myth. The greater part of the art of fine tuning the piano, is to produce good intonation, and beauty of tone, in single notes, intervals, and in the instrument as a whole, issues of pitch being only a part of the process.
Like artists, no two tuners' work will be the same. As in fine art, there is certainly such a thing as technical merit (or the lack of it) in piano tuning. As long as certain demands of technical merit are met, however, there is no "correct" or "incorrect" tuning, beyond this. Familiarity with a given instrument may be part of the process, so that the best is obtained from the piano when the tuner knows the instrument well. Often, a tuner may modify the approach taken to a given piano, on subsequent tunings, to improve the instrument. The client may not necessarily notice this, if the piano was initially in a poor state of tuning. In this case the largest and most noticeable change in the character of the instrument takes place on the first tuning.
No two pianos are identical. The artist tuner tunes by ear, gets the very best out of the individual instrument, optimises the tone, harmonises the detail with the whole, and maximises stability.
Aural piano tuning may look like a straightforward application of musical skills, but it is actually highly skilled art and applied science, requiring rigorous training and extensive experience. Piano tuners do not tune simply by having a "good ear for music", or "perfect pitch". These are urban myths. So-called "perfect pitch" is a different kind of ability, and is not by itself suitable for piano tuning. To find out more about pitch and perfect pitch, click here.
Piano tuning as carried out by the artist tuner addresses the three areas of pitch, tone and stability, all of which are critical to the piano as a musical instrument (rather than as a mere box of strings). Pitch, tone and stability are acoustically integrated in a complex way that the artist tuner understands, from proper training and years of experience.
If expert aural tuning is not available, then tuning by using an electronic meter may be an option :
Using a tuning meter or Electronic Tuning Device (ETD) In the 19th century Helmholtz said " It takes a quick man three years to learn how to tune a piano well in equal temperament by estimation of ear...Tuners have not time for any other method". Today, however, there is the possibility of tuning with the aid of an electronic meter (ETD). Whilst the meter cannot address the relationship of pitch, tone and stability in the way that artist tuner can, the best of such meters can be used where no expert aural tuner is available. This would not, however, be a sensible route for the ordinary piano owner, unless there is no option of expert, professional tuning.
ETD tuning is a skill in its own right, that takes considerable time and experience to acquire. ETDs capable of producing even a mediocre result are not cheap. For the cost of a good ETD you would probably be able to pay for professional tuning over a good many years. Contrary to popular assumption, successful ETD tuning is not simply a question of turning the tuning pin until the ETD display says it's "OK".
Remember (see above) that the mechanics of tuning piano strings is not at all like altering the volume or tone control on a hi-fi. Each string is in high tension, and the tuning pin (wrest pin) does not even have "direct" influence on the part of the string that produces the sound (the speaking length). This is because the string passes over a number of important friction points in between. Handling this set up effectively, so that the tuning is stable, and without damaging the pin or the pin block, or lowering the condition of the instrument long term, requires considerable experience. This is not something the meter itself can assist.
It is certainly not a good idea to try to learn or practise on a valued piano. In ETD tuning there is still a need of proper mechanical technique for manipulating string tensions, and incorrect technique can actually damage the instrument, either in the short or the long term. Unless you are very experienced with pianos and piano tone to a high level of appreciation, you may not even be aware of the true condition of the instrument that has been subject to inexpert tuning.
Only the best, specialist meters, can give a satisfactory result. Cheaper meters, for example guitar tuning or frequency meters, of the kind you might obtain from your local music shop, will not work, applied to the piano - the result will not even approach proper fine tuning standards. This has nothing to do with the accuracy of the meter. It is because successful tuning cannot be represented by a set of pre-defined frequencies that can be universally applied. There are very significant differences between the actual acoustics of piano tone, and the early representations of it that even today, lead to the erroneous idea that tuning is just a question of applying a certain set of frequencies.
For more on electronic piano tuning see here.
About the qualifications and training
US clients might like to refer to the Piano Technicians' Guild. In a UK advertisement the phrase 'qualified piano tuner-technician' should mean:
1. That the advertiser has been trained at a 'recognised' institution and holds 'recognised' qualifications. The word 'recognised' here means recognised by the industry and its associated funding bodies, and in some cases by the Department for Education and Employment. There are, and have been in the past, various certificates of qualification issued by the training institutions themselves, and by other bodies in association with those institutions. All these certify basic training at one of the institutions recognised by the piano industry. Tuners may typically hold certificates issued by the City and Guilds of London Institute (CGLI), or for visually impaired tuners, the VIEW National Diploma for Piano Tuners. The main training institution for blind or visually impaired tuners is the Royal National College, which also trains some sighted students. Blind or visually impaired tuners may also have trained at the London Guildhall University, aka the London Metropolitan University, formerly the London College of Furniture, which trains sighted tuners also.
Clients should be aware that the recognised professional body for blind piano tuners is the Association of Blind Piano Tuners (ABPT).
Note: Memberships of other organisations such as the Guild of Master Craftsmen are not qualifications specifically of the musical instrument industry. This guild for example, has numerous members in many different areas of business that have nothing to do with musical instruments.
2. That the advertiser has attained membership of : the Piano Tuners' Association (MPTA) which holds its own examinations for membership and requires that the member has either trained and qualified at a recognised institution or /and has 'earned a living' in the field for at least five years.
OR / AND
3. That the advertiser holds the nationally recognised BTEC or HND (Higher National Diploma), in musical instrument technology, specialising in piano technology and tuning. These qualifications have been awarded by the London Guildhall University, aka the London Metropolitan University, formerly the London College of Furniture.
OR / AND
4. That the advertiser holds a BA or BSc (CNAA validated, internationally recognised Degree) in musical instrument technology, specialising in piano technology and tuning. These qualifications have been awarded by the London Guildhall University, aka the London Metropolitan University, formerly the London College of Furniture.
5. That the advertiser is both a member of the Institute of Musical Instrument Technology, which itself covers the whole field of musical instrument technology, and also holds Accreditation by the Institute specifically as a piano tuner-technician with expertise in this field.
Accreditation means that the member has regularly attended a recognised training institution, has attained a recognised technical qualification specifically in piano tuning and technology, has at least seven years professional experience, and has either held a position of responsibility for at least five years, or has carried out research of acknowledged importance.
The IMIT is recognised as the main professional body covering the whole of the musical instrument industry. The library of the IMIT is housed at the London Guildhall University.
In the UK anyone can legally advertise as a piano tuner, and anyone can in principle say they are "qualified". The stating of spurious or unrecognised "qualifications" is by no means unknown. In UK Law the caveat emptor principle means that it is the client's or customer's responsibility to ensure that the service they are buying is what they want. Thus, if you arrange for your piano to be tuned and are subsequently not satisfied, then you will have little chance of redress unless you can prove there has been actual damage caused to the piano. (The reality is that unskilled "tuning" can by itself cause damage, which is well known in the tuning profession. However, being difficult or impossible to "measure", it is of a kind that would be difficult or impossible to prove in Law).
Clients can look for membership of the recognised bodies that would have verified the qualifications and experience of the advertiser, i.e. MPTA or MIMIT or ABPT. These bodies may also have other types of membership. Note that these organisations do not have legislative powers and will usually operate legal disclaimers to the effect that they are not responsible for, and do not themselves guarantee their members' standard of practice. Unlike many other professions, piano tuning in the UK is unfortunately not subject to legislative regulation, which means clients are left subject to the caveat emptor principle.
Clients should be aware that good pianos are expensive musical instruments that represent a sound investment. Instruments that receive the attention of a less than able tuner-technician are of course liable to deteriorate, or even to suffer unnecessary damage. However, the greatest cause of avoidable deterioration in pianos is arguably not due to unskilled tuning and maintenance, but simply to piano owners neglecting to ensure that the necessary tuning and maintenance takes place.
Fees for piano tuning and/or maintenance are not regulated (UK). You can sensibly compare piano tuning fees with those in other industries where a visit to the client's premises is involved. The Piano Tuners' Association has 'recommended minimum fees' that vary according to area. Piano tuners, like members of any other profession, will vary in their abilities, experience, and knowledge. Piano tuning is an art requiring training, experience and considerable talent. As with any other service of this nature, clients can reasonably expect to pay more for the benefit of a high level of skill and knowledge.
Normally, roughly an hour is reasonable - especially for an instrument that has been (well) tuned regularly. More time, perhaps an hour and a half or more, may be necessary for a first visit to a piano after a period of neglect. A piano in very good condition with regular tuning may take less time.
Pianos should be tuned regularly - at least every six months (or minimum once a year if never used). If the instrument has not been regularly tuned, or has been moved, or needs a pitch raise, or has other problems, or need repairs or regulation, then extra time may be necessary. Some instruments can be tuned in less time.
If a piano has been neglected, it will be unlikely to return to its optimum condition as a result of one tuning. Regular tuning and/or maintenance is essential.
For a blind tuner it may be helpful to provide transport from the previous call, or to the next call.
Most good, experienced tuners are sufficiently expert to be able to work effectively in an environment where there is some noise. However, it is still more reasonable to expect someone carrying out a task like tuning a piano to need silence, or at least peace and quiet. As you might guess, the quality of the result can be inversely proportional to the noise and/or discomfort of the tuning environment.
And then of course there's ... tea If you are in the US, you might like to visit the Piano Technicians Guild site
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