Piano Tuner West Virginia Explains Importance of Piano Tuning

Did you know that a piano has over 200 strings at 150 lbs. tension each, totaling 30,000 lbs. of tension? Even though a wooden structure is reinforced by cast iron, it cannot maintain that high level of tension indefinitely. When your piano is tuned every 6-12 months, the pitch falls about 2-5% of the way to the note below, so that amount can be raised in one tuning. However, if the time in between piano tunings is beyond a year, the pitch falls too much to be brought back up in just one tuning. This is because for every amount your piano tuner West Virginia raises the pitch on a piano string, it falls back 10-38% of the amount of the change over the next ten minutes. That is a small amount when the change is 5%, but it becomes significant when a piano is 20-50% low.

When the change in pitch is a larger amount, it can be difficult to predict precisely how much it will fall. The proper procedure, therefore, is to simply rough tune the piano 10-38% above standard pitch, and it will fall to standard pitch again as it is tuned. It will then be fine-tuned at standard pitch. This entire process takes approximately 2 hours for your piano tuning West Virginia expert to achieve.

If a piano hasn’t been tuned for ten years or more, it might be more than 50% low. If this is the case, your West Virginia piano tuner, Harker Piano Service, would need to do two rough tunings in order to bring up the pitch; however, your investment would be proportionally more. Properly tuned piano strings are designed to be at about 70% of their breaking tension, so that the sound of your piano will be loud. If your piano technician were to try to raise the pitch more than 50%, there would be a greater chance of breaking piano strings. The correct process, therefore, would be to raise it part way in just one rough piano tuning, then the rest of the way with another second rough tuning, and then fine tune the piano.

As your piano tuner West Virginia, I will examine the overall condition of your piano upon my arrival and then give you a proposal for the work it needs. If you approve of the piano work that needs to be done, I can usually do the piano tuning and/or piano repairs the same day. If needed, we could schedule your piano services work for another time that would be convenient for you.