Piano Tuning
Call A Piano Tuner Professional
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
Piano Brands / Manufacturers
Topic Series Notes: Piano Value
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!