Piano FAQ

If I move my piano to another room, does it need to be re-tuned? My
grandmother had a fine old upright that she never got tuned. Why does my piano need regular tuning? Back home we always kept a jar of water in the bottom of the piano. Does this help keep the piano in tune? How often does my piano need
tuning?”

Piano technicians hear these questions every day. Tuning is the most
frequent and important type of piano maintenance, but it’s often the least
understood. Here we’ll look at why pianos go out of tune and how you can help yours stay in better tune between visits from your technician.

Piano technicians hear these questions every day. Tuning is the most
frequent and important type of piano maintenance, but it’s often the least
understood. Here we’ll look at why pianos go out of tune and how you can help yours stay in better tune between visits from your technician.

Aside from this initial settling, seasonal change is the primary reason pianos go out of tune. To understand why, you must realize that the piano’s main acoustical structure, the soundboard, is made of wood (typically 3/8 inch thick Sitka spruce). And while the wooden soundboards produce a wonderful sound, they also react constantly to weather. As humidity goes up, a soundboard swells, increasing its crowned shape and stretching the piano’s strings to a higher pitch. During dry times, the soundboard flattens out, lowering tension on the strings and causing the pitch to drop.

Unfortunately, the strings don’t change pitch equally. Those near the soundboard’s edge move the least, and those near the centre move the
most. So, unless it’s in a hermetically sealed chamber, every piano is constantly going out of tune! The good news is there are some simple things you can do to keep your piano sounding sweet and harmonious between regular service appointments.

Although it’s impossible to prevent every minor variation in indoor
climate, you can often improve conditions for your piano;
--Start by locating the piano away from direct sunlight, drafts, and heat sources. Excess heating causes extreme dryness, so try to keep the temperature moderate (below 20 degrees Celsius) during the winter heating season.
--Get a portable room humidifier, or install a central humidification system to combat winter dryness in climates with very cold, dry winters. A portable dehumidifier or a dehumidifier added to your air-conditioning system can remove excess moisture during hot, muggy summers.
--If controlling your home’s environment is impractical, or if you want the best protection possible, have a humidity control system installed inside your piano. These are very effective in controlling the climate within the instrument itself. Besides improving tuning stability, they help minimize the constant swelling and shrinking of your piano’s wooden parts. The critical part of such a system is the humidistat, a device that monitors the relative humidity within the piano and adds or removes moisture as needed. The Piano Life Saver is one such system.

Jars of water, light bulbs, or other “home remedies” have no such control and can actually do more harm than good.

Sound occurs when air is set into motion rapidly. People with good hearing can hear sound if those cycles of compression and uncompression occur anywhere from twenty times each second to about twenty thousand times each second.

When a piano string is set into motion, it vibrates up and down repeatedly. If the note A above middle C is properly tuned, that string will appear to vibrate 440 times in one second. That’s what A-440 means.

Every note on a piano is tuned using A-440 as the starting point. A-440 has been accepted as the universal standard for almost a century. Before that, it varied as much as a semi-tone higher or lower.

And even farther back in time, there was no standard at all. Every village used a prominent local instrument, such as a church organ, bell or even a wooden flute as the standard for tuning its musical instruments. Pity the wandering minstrel!

In the 21st Century, with music playing an integral part of our culture whether it’s music playing on a CD, iPod or computer, commercials and background music on radio and TV, almost all the music you hear is “tuned” to A-440. Even the dial tone on your phone has A-440 as one of its components. Your piano should be kept tuned to A-440 (or very close to it) so what you play matches what you hear everywhere around you.

Is it wrong to place against an outside wall? How far from the fireplace must it be? Can I keep my piano in an unheated room?

These are all common questions posed by piano owners. The answers lie in two important criteria: temperature and humidity.

Pianos are mostly wood and are greatly affected by seasonal change. Variations in the air’s relative humidity, and to a lesser extent temperature, cause a piano to go out of tune. In the long run, repeated swings in relative humidity can cause damage to the finish, cracking of the wooden soundboard, and even structural failure. So, when locating your piano, try to choose a spot with the fewest drafts, no direct sunlight and stable temperature and humidity.

Many people are under the impression that aural tunings are far superior to the electronic-assisted tunings many piano technicians use these days. While this may have been true 25 years ago, technology has moved ahead at a very fast pace.

Aural tuning is an art… what my father called “The Art of Compromise”. My brother Jamie wrote a very good treatise on this subject with that title, which is available on Amazon.ca. One of my tuning mentors, who was one of the finest tuners in the world, once told me that the best we can hope for as piano tuners is to make the piano sound less bad. This is because of the basic enharmonic elements of the piano.

Most tuners work with what is known as “equal temperament”, in which every semitone is raised or lowered by the 12th root of 2, achieving this through various tests to determine the proper octave widths in each section of the piano. Because the piano is such an imperfect instrument, compromises must be made to make the piano sound as beautiful as possible under the circumstances.

Before the advent of the Sanderson Accu-Tuner, the first Electronic Tuning Assistant (ETA) that was capable of recognizing how these compromises could be made, “tuning machines” weren’t sophisticated enough to make any compromises and those tunings were unsatisfactory at best. Since then great strides have been made in the technology, and a competent tuner who understands both the reasons why compromises are made and how to get the best use out of the equipment can perform excellent tunings that rival the best aural tuners.

Most of the truly professional tuners who use an ETA are not only utilizing the latest technology in their work, but they are actually performing a “hybrid” tuning which uses both the device and their aural skills to tune your piano. All of the best ETA tuners that I know were originally aural tuners and many of them passed their Guild exams aurally before they adopted the new devices.

The main ETA devices in use today are the Sanderson Accu-Tuner, Tune-Lab, the Verituner and the Reyburn Cybertuner. Other devices such as Strobotuners and chromatic guitar-type tuners are totally unsuitable for tuning pianos.

The Verituner in particular is a fascinating and extremely versatile device that allows a technician access to many different functions to tailor a tuning to a particular piano. When used properly by a competent piano tuner it mixes art and science to achieve the same compromises a fine aural tuner uses in their craft. The Verituner is the ETA that I have used to tune for some of the finest artists in the world and you can see their names on the Concert Tunings page on this website. I have had nothing but compliments on the tunings from all of them and have never had a single complaint.

So, it is my contention that when used properly there is very little difference if any between fine aural tunings and fine ETA tunings.

Who built the first piano in Canada?

The first piano builders in Canada were likely British or German craftsmen who worked in small shops, probably only making a couple of pianos a month.

One of the earliest builders was Frederick Hurd, working in Quebec City in 1816. Theodore Heintzman, one of the most recognized of the early piano men in Canada, began building pianos in 1860, forming the Heintzman Company in 1866. Between 1890 and 1925 there were over 100 companies listed building pianos and making piano parts. (source: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

Who built the first piano in the United States?

It was probably John Behrent, who lived in Philadelphia. Early in 1775, he advertised for sale an “extraordinary instrument by the name of pianoforte, in mahogany in the manner of the harpsichord.”

This instrument, currently preserved in the Smithsonian, is rectangular, has only 54 keys, and resembles a German clavichord. It appears to have had a long and useful life.

How many parts are in a grand piano?

A modern grand piano contains approximately 11,116 wood, metal, felt and metal parts!

Who made the first piano

Bartolomeo Cristofori, an Italian instrument maker, began working on a design for a "Arpicimbalo del piano e forte" in about 1698 and built one somewhere around 1703. The earliest example in existence was built in 1720 and is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. A replica of this instrument can be seen (and played!) at the National Music Centre Studio Bell here in Calgary.

How much do pianos weigh?

A Steinway Concert Grand (model D) weighs in at 980 pounds (444.5 kg) but some concert grands weigh much more. A Bosendorfer Imperial 290 weighs in at 1,270 pounds (522 Kg)! The average grand piano weighs between 500 and 800 pounds depending on the size and upright pianos weigh in at about 375 pounds for a small spinet up to about 750 pounds for a large upright.

Because it’s so annoying, the racket of keys struck at random may rattle your nerves, but it shouldn’t damage most pianos. If it does, it’s likely the instrument was in need of major service or replacement.

Most pianos are built to withstand very heavy use. Next time you see a serious pianist perform a flamboyant classical piece, notice how forcefully he or she attacks the keyboard. Or listen to how hard your tuner pounds each key when tuning your piano. In comparison, a child’s small hands couldn’t possibly play that hard

But remember that music exists to give pleasure. Encourage your child to have fun with the piano, not to be afraid of it. Don’t worry if young children play haphazardly and loudly. If you teach respect for the instrument and they discover how enjoyable playing can be, they’ll treat it properly. And if your children learn that playing the piano is fun, you won’t have to plead with them to practice when they’re older.

Standard piano casters are only meant for occasional small movements, such as rolling the piano a few feet on a smooth floor. Pianos moved often, such as those on stages, in school buildings or in churches, must be mounted on special dollies to prevent damage to the original casters and legs. To safely move your home piano to a new spot in the room, here are some tips:

Grands

If the piano is sitting on carpeting, or if the floor has any obstacles like thresholds, furnace grates, etc., you need to be very careful to avoid straining the legs. First, lower the lid. Then position three people around the piano, one near each leg. (Remove belt buckles, rings, etc. that could scratch the piano’s finish.) It’s not necessary to lift the piano off the floor, but just to take some weight off the casters so they will roll more easily. Move the piano slowly, a few inches at a time. Caution: Never roll a caster over any bump in the floor; always lift it over, one leg at a time, using extra help.

Uprights

The same cautions for grands apply here. Use two people, one at each end of the piano (two at each end for large uprights), and always lift the casters over the bumps in the floor. Caution; Beware that most of the weight is located toward the back of an upright piano, making it prone to tipping over if leaned too far back. When moving an upright out from a wall, never allow anyone, especially children, to stand behind the piano.

Most spinet and console pianos have unsupported front legs. These take extra care, since they can easily break off if caught in a crack or dragged across soft carpeting. To avoid damage, carefully tip the piano back slightly as you roll it to reduce weight on the front legs.

Pianos are among the most durable of personal possessions. Admired for their fine cabinetry and treasured for their beautiful sound, pianos usually lead a pampered life in the best room of the house. They’re often thought of as permanent family fixtures, passed down to children and grandchildren. Their large size and weight give them the illusion of being able to last forever.

While pianos do last a long time, remember they’re really just large machines made of wood, felt and metal. Over the years, seasonal changes take their toll, stressing the wooden parts and straining glue joints. Felt hammers are pounded flat after thousands of collisions with the piano’s strings, and metal parts corrode and weaken. Years of friction wear out the one thousand felt bushings in the action. How long a piano will last varies greatly, depending upon maintenance and repair, usage, climate, and quality of manufacture.

Here’s a sketch of the life cycle of a typical home piano:

First Year

The pitch of a new piano drops considerably, as the new strings stretch and the structure settles. If the piano receives the manufacturer’s recommended three to four tunings during this time, it will stay at the correct pitch, allowing strings and structure to reach a stable equilibrium. Without these important first tunings, any later tuning will involve a large pitch raise, leaving the piano unstable.

Two to Ten Years

The pitch stabilizes, assuming regular tunings (and additional climate control devices if needed). The mechanical parts of the piano’s action wear and settle too. This causes two changes: first, the touch of the piano becomes less responsive as the parts go out of adjustment. Secondly, the tone changes as the hammers flatten and grooves develop from repeated collisions with the strings. Periodic regulation and voicing, important parts of a complete maintenance program, correct these changes.

Ten to Thirty Years

Wear of action parts continues, the extent depending upon how hard and how often the piano is played. Normal regulation and voicing will maintain good tone and touch if usage is moderate.
If the piano suffers wide temperature and humidity swings, it will begin to show permanent deterioration during this time: loose tuning pins, rusty strings, soundboard cracks, and aging of the finish.

Thirty to Fifty Years

After years of playing, the hammers and other action parts will be quite worn. Years of seasonal changes cause bass strings to sound dull and treble tone to lost clarity. Eventually, adjustment alone will not correct these problems, and some parts will need replacing to restore the original tone and touch.

Over Fifty Years.

A few geographic areas with mild climates have older pianos still in good condition. Well-built, well-designed pianos can still be playable at this advanced age if they’ve had good care and moderate use.
However, at some point in a piano’s life, an important decision must be made:

•Should the piano be replace? Is its life over?
•Should it be reconditioned or rebuilt (made functionally new again)?
•Should it continue to limp along with an ever-worsening tone and touch?

The needs of the pianist are the real variable in judging a piano’s useful life. Good performance requires a piano in good condition.

Older, high-quality instruments can often be rebuilt to like-new condition for less than the cost of a new piano. Even economy grade instruments can often be dramatically improved by judicious reconditioning. Your piano technician can help you make this decision.

Eventually, it becomes less and less practical to continue maintaining a very old piano. The undeniable end of a piano’s life comes when the repair cost exceeds the value of the repaired instrument. Medium-quality old uprights reach this point sooner than do high-quality large grands. Rare and historically important instruments may never reach this point unless totally damaged in a fire or other disaster.
Happily, almost any piano that has received reasonable care will have served the art of music for decades by the time its days are over.

There are hammers and then there are hammers. We all know about the kind that pound nails, but many people don’t know that the piano wouldn’t make a sound unless a felt-covered hammer struck the string.

Piano hammers are made from a piece of dense felt, glued under tremendous pressure onto a wooden molding. After the glue dries, the long strip is cut into 88 individual hammers.

Good hammer felt must have a combination of density and resilience so that the piano will have a beautiful, singing tone. The hammer’s tone can usually be adjusted by a process called voicing.

It depends. The piano is a complex instrument, with over 200 individual strings and thousands of moving parts. Each string must be painstakingly adjusted to put the piano in tune. Even the tiniest change in a string’s tension can be heard by a practiced ear.

You might think, then, that trucking a piano down the highway or even rolling down a hall could “knock it out of tune.” However, most pianos are actually quite tough. They’re built to withstand 20 tonnes of string tension and decades of heavy usage, so in most cases the physical movement of a piano usually has very little effect on its tuning or other adjustments.

It’s the climate change associated with the move, rather than the actual move itself, that makes pianos go out of tune. A substantial difference in humidity between its previous location and its new home will change the shape of the piano’s soundboard, changing tension on the strings.

For instance, a well-tuned piano moved fifty miles from a heated, dry apartment to a cool, humid home will sound fine immediately after the move. But a week later, after adjusting to the higher humidity, the piano will sound out of tune. Even moving a piano from one room to another in the same building can affect it if heating or air-conditioning patterns are different.

An exception is the vertical piano. Because they have four casters (grands have three), they occasionally flex enough to distort there tuning pattern immediately if moved to an uneven floor. Moving the piano back to a flat surface will return the tuning to normal. This is most noticeable with lightly built spinets and consoles, and can occur simply by moving the piano a few inches if one caster rolls off the carpeting or into a low spot on the floor.

So, do you have to tune your piano after moving it? Pianos need periodic tuning anyway, whether they are moved or not, so it’s likely that a piano that has just been moved was already due for tuning before the move. If so, it’s best to let the piano adjust to its new environment for just a week or two (and not more!), then have it tuned. On the other hand, if the piano had been recently tuned before the move, you might just hold off and see how the piano sounds after a few weeks. If the climate of the new location is similar to the old, your piano will probably sound fine until its next regular service date.

Ever wonder how that soft pedal on the left really works?

On most grand pianos, when you depress the una corda pedal (also called the shift pedal), the keyboard moves slightly to the right. This causes the hammers to strike fewer strings on each note. (Most notes have more than one string.) The result is a softer tone, and a different tone colour as well, leaving the “touch” or “feel” of the piano unchanged.

On vertical pianos, the left pedal doesn’t change the number of strings that the hammer strikes. Instead, the pedal pushes all the hammers about half way to the strings. Since the hammers have a shorter distance to travel, they hit the strings with less force and therefore less volume. Moving the hammers also introduces what is called “lost motion” in the key and the player has less control over the piano.

So on a vertical piano, the left pedal is like an off-and-on switch – press the pedal and the volume drops a bit. It’s useful for practicing but it may not make much of a difference in the actual volume. But on a well-regulated grand piano, you can use techniques such as half pedalling to get not only a difference in volume but also subtle variations in tone colour.

I get asked about “grey market Yamaha pianos” quite often and many people seem to be confused as to that they are. As the prices of these pianos can be as much as 40% lower than other Yamahas they see that are built for the North American climate, they find this quite attractive.
Unfortunately there is a lot of conflicting information about these pianos out there and I’d like to set the record straight.

Grey (or gray) market pianos, also known as “wet” or “Domestic” pianos are (almost always) Yamaha pianos that were built and sold for the domestic Japanese markets. They are NOT the same high quality pianos that are sold by authorized Yamaha dealers despite what some dealers and technicians tell you. The biggest difference is that the wood in the piano is dried to a moisture content of 14%, where the pianos built for North America are dried to about 6%. Why does that make a difference if the climate in Japan is similar to North America? The difference is how we heat and cool our homes and buildings, which is generally with forced air as opposed to the space heating common in Japan and elsewhere in the Orient. In Calgary for example, the relative humidity in homes and buildings in the winter is often below 15% because cold dry air is brought into buildings and as our furnaces heat the air they drive what little moisture is in the air out of it. Using a scientific moisture gauge I have often read Relative Humidity (RH) levels below 10%, and even if a home has a humidifier on the furnace and the home owner is conscientious about keeping it adjusted properly, the humidity is usually too low to properly care for the instrument. Many manufacturers recommend that their pianos be kept at between 40-60% RH, a near impossibility in a Calgary winter.  While a good humidity control system such as a Piano Life Saver helps keep the humidity stable it’s only a partial solution to a piano that isn’t built for our climate. This is because the damage due to the wood drying out has already been done. Soundboards may already be cracked or have lost their crown, bridges could be cracked or have loose pins and keys could be warped. In some cases glue joints can fail. All of these things negatively affect the integrity of the instrument and the tone it was designed to produce.

Another problem, which can be equally severe, is that air pollution in the areas most of these pianos originate can be quite high. Many of these pianos I see have corrosion on the metal parts, heavily discoloured wood and felt parts and in uprights, things like rotten silk cords in the actions that require replacement to make the action function properly. Sometimes they’re just worn out. While these seem like minor problems they can be expensive to fix.

That is not to say that ALL “grey market” Yamahas suffer from these problems, but after looking at over 100 of them I've seen very few that were up to the standard of the Yamaha pianos sold by authorized dealers.

How can you tell if the piano you’re looking at purchasing or that you may already own is one of these? If the piano was sold in Canada after about 2007 it will have a sticker near the serial number that states that it was built for North America. If it doesn't have that sticker you should call Yamaha Canada in Toronto toll free at: 1 (855) 300-7811 and ask to have a serial number checked for North America. If you suspect the piano is older and grey market you can visit http://www.yamaha.com/ussub/piano/serialnumberlookup.html and enter the serial number including the letter in front of it (with no spaces) the answer will appear. You can also visit the link on that page to see what Yamaha has to say about it.

All this is not just “hype”, but cold hard fact despite what some piano technicians or dealers may say.While the price of these pianos appears to be cheaper than that of pianos made for North America, the potential problems including your satisfaction with the instrument far outweigh the cheaper price.

One more thing. Even if the piano is less than 10 years old, Yamaha cannot and will not honour the warranty on these pianos unless it belongs to the original owner who purchased the piano in Japan and has the original bill of sale. Parts for these pianos cannot be purchased through Yamaha Canada or Yamaha USA and if parts are required, after market parts must be used.

The camera sweeps the concert hall, where the piano is positioned centre stage. The raised piano lid reveals a large, shining gold-coloured surface. What is this mass of metal?

It’s the plate of the piano, and its purpose is to allow the strings to be stretched to 18-30 tonnes of tension without buckling the wooden frame. A plate has to be strong to do its job, so it’s made of cast iron and usually painted a gold colour for appearances. While the plate is sometimes called a “harp”, that term is rarely used by professionals.

The strings need to be under high tension to produce a powerful piano sound. The plate may be bulky and heavy, and no friend of a piano movers. But without the plate there would be no concert!

Despite the strength of the cast iron plate, defects in castings, poor design or accidents do cause plates to break now and then. It is next to impossible for a plate to crack when its being tuned by a professional so if it happens it has nothing to do with tuning process or what the tuner did. When this happens the piano usually has to be written off, though in some cases it can be repaired if the value of the instrument justifies the expense. Pianos still under warranty will usually be replaced by the manufacturer.

The Piano Technicians Guild Website, www.ptg.org has a number of excellent resources for teachers and students. For information, please select "The PTG" from the menu bar above and click on the link, then select "Resources" from the PTG Menu Bar.

(Some information courtesy of the Piano Technicians Guild Inc. Used by permission)

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Piano Technicians Guild Inc.