Keeping your piano tuned is a part of regular maintenance for your piano. Pianos should be tuned twice a year to keep it sounding its best and working properly for the student who is using the piano.
When you schedule your piano tuning please keep in mind that the piano technician will need the area that the piano is located to be quite and free of distracting noises, ie. music playing in the house, a television or radio playing, or vacuuming.
Have the piano cleared of any materials such as books, pictures, or lamps. When the piano is being tuned the technician will need to remove certain parts of the piano to reach the strings. Make sure that there will be space for the technician to place parts of the piano on the floor so as not to scratch or damage any parts of the piano. Your technician will need to remove the lid, fall board, music desk, and possibly knee board to your piano to access the inner workings of the piano.
Keep track of any broken keys or “funny sounds” coming from your piano and tell your technician about these before they start working on the piano. The more your technician knows about your piano the better they can work on fixing it.
The length of time to tune a piano is between one to two hours depending on what condition your piano is in.
Excellent point, to tell a piano tuner about any sticking or troublesome keys and notes. Too many piano owners assume the tuner will just figure it out on their own but the job goes a lot more smoothly when they’re alerted to troublesome spots!
Thanks for the note. I see that you’re a tuner, we should connect. Send us an email with your contact info:)
Thank you for the helpful article when you explain that it’s important to keep track of broken keys or funny sounds. I love to play the piano but mine has been sounding off lately. I’ll have to look into piano tuning.
I like how the article explains that when you have someone come over to tune your piano, you should make sure to have everything cleared off of it so they will be able to have easy access to all parts of the piano. We currently have some decorations and music books on top of our piano. When someone comes to tune our piano, we will make sure to have everything cleared off.