How often and when should I have my piano tuned?

Have your piano tuned as often as you feel necessary, but a minimum of twice a year is the rule of thumb. Just remember: when you turn on the heat in the winter, and when you turn it off in spring, you're about 2 weeks away from needing a tuning. These are the times of year when the humidity change starts to shrink or swell the wooden structure of the piano, and it starts to drift out of tune. So wait until the room your piano is in gets used to the climate change, then tune your piano! To put the matter of tuning in perspective, remember that a concert piano is tuned before every performance, and a piano in a professional recording studio, where it is in constant use, is tuned 3 or 4 times every week as a matter of course.

Why does a piano need to be tuned regularly?

Keep in mind that every piano is subject to one or more factors that will cause it go out of tune, including:

• Humidity changes
• Temperature changes
• Stretching of strings
• Slipping tuning pins
• Hard use

There has never been a piano made by any company, at any price, that does not require a schedule of regular tunings. It is a fact that a piano will go out of tune whether it is played or not. By far, the main reason pianos go out of tune is due to changes in humidity from season to season. In the upper-midwest, pianos go flat in the winter months when dry heat expelled from your furnace or radiator draws moisture out of the piano's soundboard. In the spring, when you turn the heat off, the air is usually more moist. The soundboard absorbs this moisture, expands and causes the piano to go sharp by the summer. Fluctuations in room temperature surrounding the piano cause less of a change in tuning than humidity changes do. But, direct sunlight or heat from stage lights can cause rapid changes in tuning.