The piano is one of only a half dozen instruments that are not tuned by the player every time it is used. Violists, Cellists and Guitarists do not have to call a tuner, but pianists, piano owners and piano teachers have to find a tuner / technician to maintain their instruments.

The piano tuner professional understands the main enemy of piano tuning and overall piano health is humidity / temperature changes, others would be surprised to discover the second enemy of piano health, and longevity is lack of service.

Nobody is playing ~ why have it tuned?

Even if no one is playing your piano, the weather is playing it 24 hours everyday and it should be tuned regularly.

With over 20 tons of string pressure, pianos are designed to be maintained at A440 standard pitch and when a piano is allowed to go off-pitch the curvature of the soundboard changes and the whole structure of the piano shifts. As you can imagine, this bending and shifting is not productive for the health of your piano.

Preventive maintenance is another reason a piano should be tuned, even if the customer doesn’t care how badly and inharmonic the piano sounds when out of tune. Like so many things in life, piano problems often develop over time. The watchful eye of the piano tuner can help to avoid thousands of dollars in repair and potentially avoid losing all value.

We all know people who have “rolled the dice” with their pianos by not having them tuned for years. To take such a gamble with instruments that cost thousands of dollars just to avoid the price of a couple tunings each year seems counterproductive. And certainly only use a piano tuner who is a skilled professional.

From Steinway & Sons:

Tuning is an art practiced by skilled professionals and under no circumstances should anyone other than a professional be allowed to try to tune your Steinway piano.

Scheduling Your Piano Tuner

How often should you schedule appointments with your piano tuner?

Let’s ask the people who make pianos.

Read what piano manufactures say

The most popular article in this series is “Which Piano Brand is Best?” ~ the most well written and best thought out article “What is my piano worth?”, used by permission, was written by Bob Conrad of Conrad Piano Services ~ a piano owners guide to determine the value of your piano.

Current piano brands / manufacturers

This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list of piano manufacturers, but I believe these companies are the most relevant to current needs.

• August Förster
  Mfg. in Germany
• Baldwin
  owned subsidiary of Gibson Guitar Corp.
  Names used: Baldwin, Acrosonic, Hamilton, Classic, Chickering, Wurlitzer, ConcertMaster,
  No longer used: D.H. Baldwin, Kranich & Bach, Howard, Ellington, Monarch
• Bechstein
  German piano mfg. ~ American office in New York City
  (Reference: Bechstein America)
  Names used: Otto Meister, Heintzmann, Ellington, Story & Clark, Wyman, Linden
• Blüthner
  London, England piano company
• Bösendorfer
  Austrian piano manufacturer, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha.
  (Reference: Bosendorfer Purchased by Yamaha)
• Boston
  Designed by Steinway Musical Properties
  Mfg. by Kawai Musical Instrument Mfg. Co. Ltd. Hamamatsu, Japan
• Chavanne
  French piano
• Dongbei Piano Co., Ltd.,
  Third largest piano producer in China
  Owned by Gibson Guitar ( Baldwin Piano Co.)
• Essex
  Designed by Steinway
  Mfg. by Young Chang
  
• Estonia
  European piano mfg. in Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic
• Fandrich & Sons Pianos
  Pianos imported from China and rebuilt in Stanwood, Washington as Fandrich & Sons Pianos
• Fandrich Piano Co.
  Centralia, Washington piano company
• Fazioli
  Mfg. in Sacile, Italy
• Feurich
  Mfg. in Germany
• Haessler
  Mfg. by Blüthner
• Hallet & Davis
  Mfg. by Dongbei Piano Co., China
  
• IBach
  Pianos mfg. by Daewoo Electronics, Yeoju, South Korea, Rud. Ibach Sohn, Schwelm, Germany
  No longer being sold in the US
• Irmler
  Mfg. by Blüthner
• Kawai
  Mfg. in Japan
• Mason & Hamlin Co.
  Mfg. in Haverhill, Massachusetts
  
• Overs Piano
  Mfg. in Australia
• Petrof
  Mfg. in Prague,Czech Republic
• Pleyel & Co.
  Mfg. in France
• Pramberger
  Korean piano mfg. by Samick / Young Chang
• Ridgewood
  Distributed by Weber ~ Probably manufactured by Dongbei Piano Co, China,
  
• Royale Piano Co.
  Korean Piano Co.
• Samick Piano Co.
  Manufacturing sites in Korea & Indonesia
  Manufacturers of: Kohler & Campbell, Pramberger, Sohmer & Co., Wm. Knabe & Co., Conover Cable
  Recently acquired: Seiler Piano.
  
• Schimmel
  Manufactured in Braunschweig, Germany
• Schulze Pollmann
  Mfg. in Turin, Italy
  
• Seiler
  Mfg. in Germany, recently acquired by Samick
  
• Shigeru-Kawai
  Mfg. by Kawai
• Steingraeber & Söhne
  Mfg. in Bayreuth, Germany
  
• Steinway & Sons
  Mfg. in New York & Hamburg, Germany
  
• Story & Clark
  Names used: Story & Clark, Hobart M. Cable, no longer used: Classic, Lowrey, Hampton
  
• Stuart Piano Co.
  Mfg. in Australia
• Suzuki
• Walter, Charles R.
  Names used: Charles R. Walter, Janssen
  
• Weber
  Mfg. by Young Chang
  Names used: Weber, Sagenhaft
  
• Welmar Pianos
  Mfg. in England
• Wurlitzer
  Mfg. by Baldwin
  Names used: Wurlitzer, J & C Fischer; No longer used: Rudolph Wurlitzer, Chickering, Jonas Chickering, Cabaret, Casino
  
• Wyman Piano Co.
  Mfg. in China
• Yamaha
  Mfg. in Thomaston, Georgia; Taiwan; Northern China and Japan?
  Brand Names include Yamaha, Cable Nelson
  
• Young Chang
  Mfg. in Seoul, Korea; Tianjin, China

See my comments on Which Piano Brand is Best?

Also see What Manufacturers Recommend about Piano Tuning.

If you have any corrections or updates, please let me know by using  the comment area below.

Thank you!

Sometimes customers inquire about the differences between Steinways made in Hamburg, Germany and those made in New York, USA.

One Website visitor pointed out a difference in finish:

“… the New York finish is a nitrocellulose lacquer finish and the Hamburg finish is an MEKP initiated/cobalt promoted Polyester.”

On an Internet piano form I ran across this post by someone who goes by the name “Pianobroker” on February 20th:

Upon receiving my brand spanking new Hamburg Steinway B & A. I gotta say these make new N.Y. Steinways look and sound quite inferior.The attention to detail is night and day between the two. The obvious cosmetic differences that I see that aren’t acknowledged on the technical data Steinway website are;
Intense prep as for prepping the harp prior to guilding.
Industrial chrome plated duplex scale bars,plate bolts and nose bolt caps
Meticulous prep as for the polyester finish(extra thick)Meticulous fit as for case parts
Aluminum trap work levels
Aluminum pedal lyre plate
Sostenuto installed on the belly rail
Perfect string coils
#1 tuning pins (European standard)
Complete Renner action stack including back checks,let off buttons etc.
Recessed cheek block screws
Under carriage of piano painted in black satin polyester
Precision soundboard fit. No need for quarteround on the straight side.
Allenhead screw security leg locks
Robust brass casters
Triple lid prop in black satin polyester
Mahogany veneered inner rim
Adjustable music desk /leather trim
Superior German plastic keytops
Attention to detail is overwhelming. The soundboard,beams,keybed from underneath manufacture are performed with meticulous precision. Maybe later with more time and assistance.I can assess the structural and scale differences between the two.
As for sound I gotta say the Hamburg Steinways are well worth the extra premium if $ is no object and the sound floats your boat No lack of power,sustain or dynamic response in either Hamburg mdl.In some respects the Hamburg Steinway is moving toward a higher automotive standard.

From the New York Times:

Steinways With German Accents; Pianos Made in Queens Have Cousins in Hamburg

By JAMES BARRON
Published: August 27, 2003

In 1850, when Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg left for New York and changed his name to Henry E. Steinway, four of his five sons immigrated with him.

The fifth, C. F. Theodor Steinway, stayed behind. He hated America — ”that land of iniquity” with its unbearable weather and uncouth concertgoers. So when his father and brothers started a piano company in New York, Theodor, the technical genius of the family, sent his ideas for improving the instruments via trans-Atlantic mail.

He moved to New York in 1865, but went back to Germany regularly until 1880, when he went back for good. He opened the company’s second plant here.

It was part laboratory, part factory. While he tinkered with new sounding boards and rims, workers manufactured pianos according to the same designs used at the factory in Astoria, Queens — instruments that, because of his innovations, gave Steinways the big, bright sound that defined the modern piano.

Steinway & Sons still makes pianos here. But they are a bit different from their American cousins. Many pianists maintain that Hamburg Steinways tend to sound lusher, warmer and somehow smaller than Steinways from New York.

So there is not one Steinway sound, but two.

When concert grand No. K0862 was being trimmed in the casemaking department of the factory in Queens in June, it took on characteristics that marked it as a New Yorker forever. What would be different if it were being made in Germany? What does the Hamburg factory do differently?

The factory looks like the one in Queens — a cluster of red-brick buildings. But the Hamburg factory — whose windows were blown out in an Allied bombing raid during World War II — today is smaller, brighter and cleaner. It also continues C. F. Theodor’s laboratory tradition. Much of the precision cutting and drilling machinery installed in the Astoria plant was tried in Hamburg first.

For years, especially when Steinway was owned by CBS in the 1970′s and 1980′s, the company resisted acknowledging that New York Steinways and Hamburg Steinways were different. ”Under the reign of CBS,” said Werner Husmann, a vice president who has worked for Steinway in Hamburg for 35 years, ”we had to say we’re the same.” Now, seven years after new owners took the company public, ”at least it’s allowed that we sound different,” Mr. Husmann said.

There are pianists who prefer a Hamburg Steinway. The workmanship is better, they maintain. ”It’s like an upgraded American Steinway, and there’s nothing to sneeze at in the American Steinway,” said the pianist and arranger Wally Harper. Hamburg Steinways, he said, ”seem to be more sensitive and have a wider range of dynamics.”

But the pianist Jeffrey Siegel said the difference was more in the touch than in the sound. ”I’m not so sure anymore that one can generalize about the tonal quality,” he said.

Emanuel Ax said that Hamburg Steinways were once ”more consistent” than New York Steinways. Now, like Mr. Siegel, he said the differences have more to do with individual instruments than with where they were made.

”My impression is the whole operation has become more connected in the last few years,” Mr. Ax said. ”I really like it, because from my point of view, I think we’re starting to get the best of both worlds.”

Alfred Brendel performs on a Hamburg Steinway in Europe and a New York Steinway in America — and sends Steinway executives handwritten critiques of both, they say. So, some Steinways are delightful and some can be disappointing, no matter which factory they come from.

An Ocean Apart, Yet Close

They may still sound different, but Steinway officials say New York Steinways and Hamburg Steinways are more similar than they have ever been. High-level managers from the Queens factory say they confer with their Hamburg counterparts more often than ever. That closeness is recent, though. The chief technician at the Hamburg factory, Gerde Fründ, has worked there since 1958. But not until four years ago did the company pay his way to Queens so he could meet his American counterparts.

Bruce A. Stevens, the president of Steinway & Sons, says he is not worried that some customers may find Hamburg Steinways superior to New York Steinways. ”When people ask which is the better piano, I say, ‘We have the No. 1 and the No. 2,’ ” he said, without specifying which he considers first and which second.

Mr. Husmann added, ”We are in a position to provide people with the piano they like.”

Hamburg Steinways cost more in the United States than New York Steinways. A Hamburg concert grand sells for about $97,800, roughly $5,000 more than a comparable New York Steinway like No. K0862. ”What we try to do is keep it on parity,” said Frank M. Mazurco, Steinway’s executive vice president, ”because the exchange rate plays games with products like this.”

Sharp Corners, or Rounded?

One difference between a New York Steinway and a Hamburg Steinway is recognizable from the outside: the shape of the arms, the part of the case at either end of the keyboard.

On a New York Steinway, the curve of the arm ends in a sharp corner — a Sheraton arm, named for Thomas Sheraton, the 18th-century furniture designer. On a Hamburg Steinway, the edge is rounded.

Once, New York Steinways had rounded arms, too. Mr. Mazurco says the New York factory switched to the Sheraton arm around 1910. ”Obviously, somebody said, ‘Guys, furniture styles have changed, we need to adapt,’ ” he said. ”New York adapted. In Hamburg, they said, ‘That’s not happening in Europe.’ They kept the design the way it was. And later, when the Japanese entered the market, they started with rounded arms, like Europe. It’s New York that’s standing unique in the architecture.”

Cutting the arms gives a piano an unmistakable identity. The laminated rim of No. K0862 got its New York look on a sunny morning in June, a couple of weeks after it was wheeled out of the hot, dry room where it had spent 69 days aging so it would never pop out of shape.

The cutting was done with a machine operated by Louis Auguste, who was born near Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and arrived in this country in 1970. He was hired at Steinway five years later.

”My father was a cabinetmaker,” he said after guiding the noisy, fast-moving blade around the edge of the rim. ”My grandfather was a cabinetmaker. My girlfriend is a cabinetmaker. I’ve been doing this since I was 7.”

Since late last year, his counterpart in Hamburg has been a machine. The rounded arms of Hamburg Steinways are now shaped by a robotic device that does its work alone: once the workers have moved the rim into place on a cutting table, they step outside and shut the door.

On a Tuesday morning a couple of weeks after Mr. Auguste cut the arms on No. K0862, two of his bosses stood in the Hamburg plant, watching through a plastic window and marveling at the speed and precision of the machine. ”This is a more refined process,” said Andrew Horbachevsky, the manufacturing director of the Queens plant. ”We’re pretty primitive.”

Will a similar machine be coming soon to Mr. Auguste’s corner of the factory? ”Whether we go in with this is a question,” Mr. Horbachevsky said. ”But you’ve got to be impressed.”

The arms are not the only clue that a Steinway was made in New York or Hamburg. Just inside the lid is another marker.

The Hamburg factory still uses reddish African mahogany for one layer of the rim, the layer that ends up next to the piano’s sounding board and the cast iron plate that holds the strings. In New York Steinways, that last layer has long been made of maple and spray-painted black with the rest of the case. The mahogany is ”a marketing question,” Mr. Husmann said.

Other differences between the way No. K0862 is being made and the way Hamburg Steinways are made became clear during two days at the Hamburg plant.

The first big step in the making of a piano — bending the rim — took the same amount of time here as in Astoria: 14 minutes. But in Hamburg the job was done by three workers, plus a foreman. In Astoria, it takes six or seven, plus a foreman.

The managers of the Hamburg factory said they did not need as large a crew because, after gluing the strips of wood together, their workers load the slabs onto carts and roll them to the rim-bending machine. In Queens, the workers carry the 340-pound slabs from the gluing machine to the rim-bending device.

”You don’t need those big guys carrying it around,” Mr. Husmann said.

And where the Queens rim-benders use long-handled levers to shove the rim wood into place, members of the Hamburg team wheel in a machine with a hydraulic arm that did some of the work without grunting, groaning or sweating.

Are human hands better than hydraulic arms when it comes to driving wood into place? ”We hear people talking,” Mr. Husmann said. ” ‘Steinway hates machines.’ ‘Steinway loves machines.’ ‘What is your relationship to machines?’ It’s simple. A machine has to provide an increase in quality. We are not the people who believe we can do everything with machines. We do 85 percent by hand.”

Questions of Supply

Like the Queens factory, Hamburg has a lumberyard where wood sits, aging.

The Hamburg factory uses much of the same wood as the Queens factory — maple from the Pacific Northwest for the rims, spruce from Alaska for the sounding boards. The strips that will be glued together in Hamburg are cut, packed and shipped in Queens.

Until the 1990′s, Hamburg used European beech in the rims and Bavarian spruce in the sounding boards. Both became scarce, and Steinway officials say they decided that a reliable supply mattered more than the price. The maple costs a third more than the beech did, Mr. Husmann said.

The cast-iron plates now come from the same Ohio foundry as the plates that go into New York Steinways. The German platemaker that the Hamburg factory once relied on — which also made plumbing pipes — went bankrupt, Mr. Husmann said.

Hammers and Felt

One arm is pointed, the other is curved. One inner rim is brown, the other black. Two more major differences between a New York Steinway like No. K0862 and a Hamburg Steinway are deeper inside.

One is the action — the sensitive, see-saw mechanism inside the piano that drives a hammer toward its string when a pianist hits a key. The action is as complicated as a Rube Goldberg machine, and exists to do one crucial job: translate the touch of the pianist into motion. It converts the delicateness of Debussy or the explosiveness of Shostakovich into what the audience hears.

The other difference, Steinway says, is the hammers themselves.

On a New York Steinway, the action and the hammers are made at the factory by Steinway workers. On a Hamburg Steinway, both parts are bought from subcontractors who follow Steinway’s specifications. (Mr. Mazurco, the executive vice president, says the union contract that covers the New York plant does not dictate staffing levels.)

Pianists who prefer Hamburg Steinways, like Wally Harper, maintain that their action is more responsive than the action in New York Steinways. Steinway says the difference in the hammers matters more.

In Hamburg, Steinway uses hammers with hard felt, and the workers make them softer with needles and sandpaper. In New York, Steinway uses hammers with softer felt, and the workers make them harder by painting a gooey solution onto the head of each hammer. The solution, lacquer and lacquer thinners, adds strength, and that increases the volume and brightness of the sound.

”This is a process that takes longer,” Mr. Husmann said. ”We shape it to the right shape, voice it, listen to it.”

In a soundproof room here at the Hamburg factory, Erich Lagemann spends seven hours a day sanding the tops of hammers to just the right shape. Then he slides the action into the piano, playing a few chords and then sliding it out for more work. It is more or less what Mr. Fründ, the chief technician, does if he does not like the sound or the touch after each piano has gone through seven tunings.

”The fit and finish, I think, is a little better here,” he said.

He paused. He did not want that to sound like a put-down of New York Steinways or the workers who make them. The only thing that matters, he said, is the final result, the sound.

”New York is O.K.,” he said, ”and this is O.K.”

Invention for 900 Hands

It is something of a mystery. The same 450 workers bend and shape the wood the same way. The sounding boards are made to the same specifications. The strings and pins, hammers and keys — there should be no variation.

Yet every piano that Steinway & Sons produces has a unique sound. Some are modest, some monumental. And no one knows exactly why.

Today I was reminded of a funny piano story that happen many years ago. I tuned and serviced a piano for a customer who lived many miles away from Kansas City.

About a week later they were calling me about hearing a strange sound coming from the piano in the middle of the night while they were trying to sleep. They wanted to know what could be done about the noise.  I wasn’t thrilled about driving all the way back to where they lived but happy customers are very important to my business so I scheduled an appointment to return and hopefully fix their noise problem.

Solution to Strange Piano Sounds

After examining the piano I could find nothing that would cause such a noise and really had no idea what was going on. About another week passed and the customer called me back and informed me they discovered the problem. Mice were crawling across the strings at night plucking the strings with their little feet.

Those pesky little critters can cause a lot of damage to a piano. Along with the usual deposits they make in waste product, they love to make nests under the keys etc. They also love to gnaw on the keys.

A good understanding of how humidity relates to the health of your piano has the potential of adding years of life to your piano. I believe every piano owner would benefit from reading these short articles.

My Opinion

The following article is probably the least important of the “Piano Environment” Series, but it is a question I am asked frequently and while it reflects my opinion about servicing a piano after moving it to a new location, perhaps it can also give insight into how rapidly humidity affects pianos.

General Sentiment ~ Piano Service After A Move

How long should you wait ~ after moving your piano to have it tuned?

After moving your piano into a new home, the general sentiment is to wait before tuning. The logic behind this waiting is to allow the piano time to condition itself to the new environment.

Let us think about this for a moment by asking a question; “How long do you think it would take for a drop of water to soak into a piece of wood?” Answer: Not long ~ minutes, right? This is not a fair comparison because pianos have protective lacquers and sealant, nevertheless I wanted to get you thinking in the correct direction to dispel the many myths about waiting for weeks or even months before tuning your piano after moving ~ which is ridiculous, in my opinion.

Dispelling Myths About Piano Service After Moving

It has been proven that no piano, no matter what size, brand, or model, will stay perfectly tuned ~ exactly where the tuner set the strings ~ for 24 hours unless the piano is in a laboratory with exact climate control. This tells us that shifting humidity within 24 hours affects the the wood within a piano.  Pianos serviced in storage, for piano dealers, where doors are opening and closing many times need re-tuning within minutes because of the shifting environment.

Understanding this rapid acceleration of humidity change within the piano makes accepting myths about waiting several weeks before tuning a piano in its new environment difficult to accept.

Another concept of piano settling concerns the level of the floor where the piano is sitting. In other words, the floor might not have the same level, therefore the construction of the piano shifts and needs more time to settle before tuning. But let me ask you a simple question; “Have you ever moved a table across the room and discovered the floor not as level as where you moved it from and now the table is rocking?” ~ of course you have.

So then if a piano being moved to another area needs to settle before tuning, then why is it we tuners, on a regular basis, walk into our customer’s homes and discover the piano has been moved and yet the tuning is no more out of tune than normal? Or when a piano has been moved shortly after a tuning within the same room or home where the humidity has remained fairly consistent the piano is still holding tune?

The fact is this type of settling within the framework of a piano affects tuning so little that even trained piano technicians would have a hard time noticing the difference. When pianos do go out of tune when being moved from one wall to another within the same room, it has been my experience, from checking the hygrometer sitting on top of the piano, the piano has gone through a humidity swing and it is the unstable humidity in the new area that cased the piano to go out of tune, not the floor or the piano settling.

Years ago I talked to a technician at a piano convention and he told an interesting story that relates to this subject about settling. He tuned a nine foot concert Steinway grand piano for a concert before the piano was moved into the concert hall. It was winter and extremely cold outside so the piano movers did everything they could to protect the piano from the extreme cold. They wrapped the piano in several layers of blankets and made sure the moving van was also fairly warm. After wrapping the piano they moved the piano as quickly as possible from the dealers showroom to the van and from the van to the concert hall. When they unwrapped the piano the air under the blankets was still warm and when the piano technician checked the piano it was still in good tune ~ proving once again that it is not the move but the changing of humidity and environment that causes a piano to lose it’s tune.

Another point about settling has to do with new piano strings stretching. New pianos go out of tune quickly because the new strings stretch. To compensate for this stretching, piano manufacturers recommend new pianos be tuned at least three or four times the first year. Yet many piano dealers recommend waiting before having your new piano tuned after moving the piano into your home. Why? No matter how long you wait, until the strings become fully stretched (by having them tuned) a new piano is not going to hold tuning for long anyway ~ the sooner you have your new piano tuned three or four times the sooner you get to enjoy a stable piano.

I would assume most, if not all experienced piano tuners have been called to service a piano 10, 15 or 20 years old and yet has never been tuned. Such a piano after settling for so many years still acts like a new unstable piano because the strings have not been pulled up to pitch the required number of times to remove the stretch ~ for them to become fully stretched. In other words, it is not the length of time the piano settles but the number of tunings required to stabilize a new piano. A new piano, or a piano 10, 15 or 20 years old that has never been serviced needs tuning three or four times before stabilizing. The only exception is when a new piano has been sitting on the showroom floor for many months and has gone through several in-house, or showroom tunings before purchased.

There have been other myths in the piano tuning business that have been disproven such as pianos very low in pitch needing more than one appointment to bring them up to standard. Thirty years ago most tuners would tell you to bring up, a very out of tune piano to standard pitch required two, three or perhaps even four appointments. Today, reputable tuners know that is not true and if the piano is in good shape there is no reason to not bring it up to pitch in one appointment. But this myth about pianos needing to settle for weeks before tuning is still hanging around. You hear it all the time from dealers, teachers and even other piano tuners. It is simply not true.

Don’t be fooled by piano dealers advising you to wait ~ hoping you will forget so they will never have to pay for the free tunings they promised. But I cannot completely blame dealers for keeping this myth alive, after all they are at the mercy of the technicians who advise them and many piano tuners also buy-into this myth about pianos needing to settle after a move.

I believe there is nothing to be gained by waiting more than 72 hours after a piano move to have your piano serviced and certainly waiting a week is plenty of time. When your piano arrives in your home, call your piano tuner immediately. The chances are he will not be able to work you into his schedule for one, two or three weeks anyway, so call him while it is on your mind and schedule an appointment.

A Lifetime Of Enjoyment

A piano brings a lifetime of enjoyment to you and your family. As you might expect with any investment of this size, a piano requires periodic servicing to provide outstanding performance year after year. But to understand what maintenance is required, it’s important to understand the nature of the piano.

The beautiful, natural sound of a piano is due to the remarkable blending of such materials as wood, metal, buckskin, and wool. Together they create a uniquely timeless sound that no other instrument in the world can duplicate. While electronic synthesizers may approximate the sound of an acoustic piano, they cannot approach the true beauty of the real thing.

Pianos are peculiar in the sense the more often they are tuned, the longer they stay in tune. And conversely, the less often they’re tuned, the faster they go out of tune. Thus a piano that’s not been tuned for many years will usually not hold the first tuning as long as a piano that has been tuned on a regular basis.

Schedule Your Piano Tuner Regularly

Keep your piano in tune so you can enjoy the full potential of your piano. ( Piano Manufacturers Recomendations )  It was specifically designed to be tuned to the international pitch standard of A-440 cycles per second. Your piano will sound its best and give you and your family the most pleasure when it is tuned regularly and kept in proper playing condition.

Protect Your Piano From Dust

Keep your piano clean. Keep the keyboard covered when not in use to prevent dust from accumulating. Clean keys by occasionally wiping them with a damp cloth and drying them immediately. If accumulated debris cannot be removed with a damp cloth, try wiping the cloth on a bar of mild soap or moisten with dishwasher detergent before wiping. Do not use chemicals or solvents to clean piano keys. Call a qualified piano technician to remove anything from the keys you cannot wipe away.

A good understanding of how humidity relates to the health of your piano has the potential of adding years of life to your piano.  I believe every piano owner would benefit from reading these short articles.

Recommended Humidity For Piano Health

Measure Piano Humidity Swings With A Digital Hygrometer

The general consensus is the best humidity for a piano is 42%. When humidity lowers below 35% or rises above 55% you enter a danger zone. However, it is the swinging back and forth that damages pianos.

Consistent ~ Year Around Humidity Levels Are Best For Your Piano

I have read reports about technicians surprised by how well pianos perform in a dry desert climate where the humidity remains low year around. Maintaining a consistent humidity level is the most important factor for piano health and piano tuning.  However, I do not live in such a climate and it seems to me a consistently dry climate would dry out the wood and damage a piano.  So I recommend you make every effort to maintain humidity as close to 42% as possible. (Click the Hygrometer image to purchase.)

Monitor Your Piano Humidity Swings With A Hygrometer

As a piano tuner, I wish every piano owner and piano customer had a Digital Hygrometer ( Humidity gauge ) sitting on top of their piano. Digital Hygrometers or Digital Hygro Thermometers, like the one pictured above, measure humidity and keep a history of the minimum and maximum temperature and humidity levels reached since the last time that history was reset.  Humidity control is very important for the health of your piano and a good place to start before purchasing a piano humidifier or dehumidifier for moisture control is discovering house humidity surrounding your piano.

For my customers who own Digital Hygrometers and have them sitting on their pianos, as a part of my service, I reset the humidity history every time I tune their pianos. That enables me to keep a close eye on humidity swings in their home since my last piano tuning service and assists in making recommendations.

Even if you have humidity control in your home, it is a good idea to have a separate hygrometer to gauge humidity and record the relative humidity surrounding your piano.  I purchased the one pictured above from a piano supply company, however the same hygrometer can be found here.

Temperature, Humidity, Control In Your Home

To correct a humidity problem it is best to stabilize the environment in your home. Remember, everything in a piano is either made of wood or depends on wooden parts to function, therefore humidity control in your home not only is beneficial to your piano but helps to prevent potential problems with your entire home.

Piano Life Saver

Whenever discussing humidity and how to correct problems, the question usually arises about whether to install a “Dampp-Chaser Humidity Control System” or as they are now called “A Piano Life Saver System” I have some mixed feelings about them. The humidity sensors on the Piano Life Saver humidistat controls both the piano dehumidifier and humidifying features of the system and are beneficial to piano tuning if they are maintained and serviced correctly. However, anyone purchasing these systems should be aware of a few potential negatives:

Piano Life Saver Systems

Maintaining A Life Saver Humidity System

• Dampp-Chaser systems while beneficial to your piano soundboard and tuning, do NOTHING to protect the most important part of your piano ~ the piano pinblock. I emphasize to customers these systems should be viewed as a patch and not a fix to humidity problems, sometimes they forget this important information and become more lax about the environment in their home ~ subjecting the piano to more humidity swings than if they never installed the “Life Saver Humidity System”.

• For piano humidity control, Dampp-Chaser systems need to be filled and serviced regularly. As a piano technician, I inform customers with these systems the reservoir will hold more than one pitcher of water and when the low-water light begins to flash they still have about half of a tank of water left in the reservoir. While that gives them some comfort if the light has been on for a while without noticing, sometimes they procrastinate filling the tank, knowing they have some water left in the tank, resulting in the system completely drying out. In that case there is a small potential for damage to the piano.

• Another problem concerns partially filling the tank. More than a few customers forget you should add one complete whole pitcher of water when the warning light begins to flash. As a result, they watch the light while filling, fearing an over-flow, and just barely fill the tank enough to shut off the light. In such cases they are filling it every few days and then call me asking what is wrong, when the only problem is they are not adding the complete pitcher of water. (Note: If the pitcher that came with your system is marked  “fill to this line”, then filling to the marked line constitutes “one complete whole pitcher of water” as referenced above. )

Dampp-Chaser Humidifier Treatment

• Piano Life Saver Systems are also problematic in collecting mold, especially the hose used for filling.  However these mold problems have been partially solved as long as customers remember to add the Humidity Treatment ~ now supplied with new systems. (Click the Humidifier Treatment image to purchase.)

If a customer is aware, and does not forget, these important facts of piano maintenance and maintains them properly, then Dampp-Chaser systems can serve to stabilize tuning and ( while no guarantee ) will help to prevent soundboard cracks.

A good understanding of how humidity relates to the health of your piano has the potential of adding years of life to your piano. I believe every piano owner would benefit from reading these short articles.

Humidity Swings And Piano Parts

Everything in a piano is either made of wood or depends on wooden parts to function. Wet humid conditions swell and warps wooden parts and dry parched conditions shrinks and cracks wooden piano parts.

While high humidity badly affects a piano and low humidity badly affects a piano, even worse is swinging back and forth, which is what we have in Kansas City ~ hot humid summers and cold dry winters.

Dryness causes wood to crack, which is the most serious damage, and many times those cracks would never develop, without first going through a period of damp humid conditions.

Soundboard Pressure Ridges

Let’s take the soundboard for example:

The soundboard already has a great deal of pressure exerted on it and wet humid conditions cause it to swell, pushing the wood grain with great force the soundboard sometimes develops a “pressure ridge”. On grand pianos, you can see these pressure ridges if you lower your eye-sight to just above level with the soundboard ~ to the point where the light glares off the soundboard. Once you spot a “pressure ridge” you can run your finger across the ridge and feel it under your finger.

At this point the pressure ridge is not considered a crack and no piano manufacturer will warranty a “pressure ridge”, yet if the piano goes through a period of dryness, this is where the crack will most likely develop. “Pressure ridges” can be seen on many pianos still sitting on the dealer’s showroom floor. This is one more, of the many reasons why you should never, never, never buy a piano without having a professional piano tuner examine the piano before you buy.

Soundboard cracks usually do not cause much of a problem to the tone and overall sound of your piano unless the soundboard ribs loosen and begin to buzz and rattle. Unless there is a rattle or buzz the soundboard will still perform. (For more information on why soundboard cracks do little to harm piano tone – see this Steinway technical.)

Humidity Swings And The Piano Pinblock

Piano Pinblock

A more serious problem that may develop as a result of “humidity swings” is pin-block damage. The pinblock is what holds the tuning pins. The quality and condition of the pinblock determines the tightness of tuning pins and is one of the most important factors in tuning stability. For many manufacturers, including Steinway, the minimum specification allowed for tuning pin tightness, to pass inspection and exit the factory is only 50 inch pounds. While technicians, like myself, would like all new pianos to measure 75 to 85 inch pounds many leaves the factory with much less.

What This Means For The Piano Owner?

A piano is still tunable at 50 to 60 inch pounds, but once the pinblock loosens to the point the tightness of the tuning pins only measures 25 to 30 inch pounds, we generally consider that piano no longer a tunable piano. After a piano has gone through a few seasonal changes, it is not uncommon for the pinblock to loosen five to ten inch pounds in the first five years of service. To avoid getting stuck with one of those 50 inch pound pianos, never, never, never buy a piano without a professional piano tuner appraising the quality of the piano before you buy.

Note: About the above “Piano Bridge” pictures ~ The piano soundboard is designed to have a crown.  The image for “Dry Conditions” shows a flat soundboard which is not accurate.  In dry conditions I am sure the soundboard flattens more than it should but not completely flat. The image that shows “Moist Conditions” is demonstrating too much crown ~ which is what happens in moist conditions.

The most popular article in this series is “Which Piano Brand is Best?” ~ the most well written and best thought out article “What is my piano worth?”, used by permission, was written by Bob Conrad of Conrad Piano Services ~ a piano owners guide to determine the value of your piano.

Do you know what type of piano you own?

When a new customer calls to schedule a piano tuning, I usually ask them what type of piano they own.  While no one should ever be embarrassed because they do not know their type of piano, I put together this article to assist piano owners discover what type of piano they own. It is not an ironclad rule, but a general guide to help customers and piano owners discover their type of piano.

The piano comes in many different styles, designs, shapes and sizes and a piano tuner has to learn to service them all. Pianos have two basic categories: the vertical and horizontal pianos.

Vertical Pianos – They are called vertical pianos because of their height and the position of the strings. The height of this kind of piano range from 36 to 60 inches. There are 4 types:

Spinet Piano ~ 36" to 39" Spinet – With its height of 36 to 39 inches, and an approximate width of 58 inches, spinets are the smallest of the pianos. Given its size, it is the popular choice of many people who live in limited living spaces, such as apartments. One noted downside of spinets is the shortened strings and drop or indirect action, which means it has less power and accuracy due to its size and construction.

Console ~ 40" to 43" Console – The console is slightly larger than the spinet, its height ranges from 40 to 43 inches and is approximately 58 inches wide. It’s usually made with a direct action, thus producing more enhanced tones.

Studio ~ 44" to 48" Studio - The Studio piano is often used in music schools and music studios. It is 44 to 48 inches in height and has a width of approximately 58 inches. Because of its larger soundboard and longer strings, it produces good tone quality and is very durable.

Upright ~ 49" to 60" Upright – This is the tallest among the vertical pianos, with a height ranging from 49 to 60 inches and an approximate width of 58 inches. This is the type of piano your great grandparents used to play, though there are modern uprights still in production today.

Grand Pianos – Also known as horizontal pianos. They are called horizontal pianos because of their length and the placement of their strings.  There are 4 basic types:

Petite Grand ~ 4'5" to 5'4" Petite Grand – This is the smallest of the horizontal pianos. It ranges in size from 4 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 4 inches, it is indeed small but still powerful.

Baby Grand ~ 5'6" to 6'7" Baby Grand – A very popular type of piano which ranges in size from 5 feet 5 inches to 6 feet 7 inches. Baby grands is a popular choice because of its sound quality, aesthetic appeal and affordability.

Semi-Concert Grand ~ 6'8" to 7'6" Semi-Concert Grand – Next size up from the Baby Grand piano is the Semi-Concert Grand, it is approximately 6 feet 8 inches to 7 feet 6 inches long.

Concert Grand ~ 9' or longer Concert Grand – At 9 feet or longer, is the largest of all the grand pianos.

Fazioli Grand ~ 10' 1/25 inches The Fazioli Grand – The largest of modern concert grands is the Fazioli Grand measuring just over 10 feet.

Challen ~ 11'8" The Challen Grand – The largest grand ever made is the Challen at 11 feet 8 inches.

The most popular article in this series is “Which Piano Brand is Best?” ~ the most well written and best thought out article “What is my piano worth?”, used by permission, was written by Bob Conrad of Conrad Piano Services ~ a piano owners guide to determine the value of your piano.

Which piano brand ~ manufacturer is best?

There are many different opinions about piano quality. In the end, the best piano is the one the customer gets the most pleasure – both in short and long term. Along the same thought, it depends somewhat on what the customer likes. Example: I have said before, if you like a big bass then you need to buy either a Bösendorfer or Baldwin since they have the biggest bass section. However, some would say their bass section swallows up the rest of the piano. If you like a bright sound then you need to go with a Yamaha or other bright pianos on the market.

Performing artists prefer Steinway

Steinway pianos can be voiced to be either very bright or mellow, while other bright pianos start to sound muffled if you voice them too far towards mellow tone. Steinway is top of the list for performing artists and there are many reasons performing artists prefer Steinway. That being said, Steinway gets a lot out of their name and allows their pianos to leave the factory in questionable shape when it comes to regulation and adjustment. I have also seen brand new Steinway pianos, still on the dealers floor with questionable pinblocks, etc.

Yamaha easiest to service

When I started in the piano tuning business, someone who was a big Yamaha fan, gave me their opinion the best pianos where the ones easiest to work on (an opinion that I do not necessarily agree to). Their thought was Yamaha, unlike many other well know brands, has taken the time when designing their pianos to think about the technician – that was smart. Yamaha also pays extra for all new Yamaha pianos sold to have their “preventative maintenance program” known as the “Yamaha service bond” included in the new piano service.

I do not want to be misunderstood in my next statement so let me say up front that I too like Yamaha pianos, however, if you wonder why, when asking technicians about recommendations of piano brands, that Yamaha is one of the first mentioned brands – there is the fact ~ technicians get paid more (because of the Yamaha Service Bond) to work on the easiest piano made to service – Yamaha was very smart in their marketing.

Ask your piano tuner / technician

Good technicians, and can make any brand sound like a dream piano of a lifetime by talking up their strong points or make them sound like a huge gamble – all without being dishonest, because technicians know the strong and weak points in all brands they service. So make sure you have a piano tuner / technician you trust when asking for advice about piano brands.

The most important thing when buying a new piano is to have a trusted piano tuner / technician assess the piano before you buy. If possible, it is best to have more than one piano picked out so he can inform you which one he likes best.

List of Piano Brands and Manufacturers