Piano Sounds In the Middle of the Night
Piano customers trying to sleep
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.
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- Piano Keys Damaged by Mice
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- More Mouse Damage to Piano Keys
How Long Should I Wait After Moving?
Topic Series Notes: Piano Environment
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.
Basic Piano Care ~ Where Do I Begin?
From the Piano Technicians Guild:
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.
How To Measure Piano Humidity Swings
Topic Series Notes: Piano Environment
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.