Anyone here tune pianos?

My mother inlaw asked me to tune her piano a couple of weeks ago and I stupidly said I would give it a shot. What will I need and what pitfalls might I encounter? I looked at a tool to turn the keys. Is this tool a must or can I use a socket wrench? Thanks.

In the past, piano tuners used a few tuning forks and mainly their ears. Not many of those around anymore. Modern tuners use electronic tuners, but the process still takes a few hours depending on how bad it is.

I've tuned a few notes on my Gulbransen spinet a few times. It took me a about an hour. It came with a tuning wrench mounted inside the cover, and I used a Korg electronic guitar tuner.

My younger sister was given an old upright once, and she asked me to tune it. I spent 3 or 4 hours on that beast and never did get it in tune. I realized after a while that the tuning pegs were slipping. The piano came out of a grade school, so who knows how many kids banged on those keys. She eventually got rid of it as it just wasn't worth fixing.

Just get a real piano tuner. Don't even consider taking this on yourself; you'll be very very sorry if you do. For a hundred bucks or so, a real tuner will do it right.

I looked into this quite deeply for my own piano. Once I'd done all the research, I hired a real piano technician and have had not a single regret.

I wouldnt try it myself. Like said above, I would just hire a tuner and get it done right.

+1

You can very easily ruin it or snap a string if you're not careful or have the right equipment.

You can tune a piano, but you cant tune a fish!

Risky. What if you used a pliers and bent the tuning pins? And if you're not trained this could be an all day affair and it still might not end up tuned. It's one thing to touch up a string or two but it's no small matter to do the whole thing. I'd say save up your $80 bucks or so and get the real deal.

There are plenty of articles online which provide the details of how to tune a piano, however most of them also warn of snapping strings etc. From what I have gathered piano tuning is an art as although the average job could possibly tune it given the correct equipment, there are other factors which affect the overall sound which only someone with experience may able to get. Dont use pliers whatever you do though as you could cause serious damage to the pins or snap a string. You need a piano tuning lever, a mute and (unless you have a great ear) a digital tuner if you want to do it properly.

I am in the same boat at the moment as I got a piano for free off a friend, but its quite old so I'm not sure if its worth paying someone to tune the piano which may be untunable...

peace

Get a real piano tuner!

I tuned pianos quite a lot without learning it. My hearing is very fine, so there is no problem.

There is also a lot to read about how to do it ... I mean: where to begin, to damp the double and triple strings in the beginning and tune one string per key only in the beginning. Then tune the double and tripple strings of one key afterwards.

It is a common way to tune up a (oh lord, my English! ... sorry) 5th and then down a 4th again and so on. This is becuse it's quite easy to hear if a 5th (or a 4th) is tuned correctly.

So if you have a real good hearing and also you know about the theory how to tune a piano AND you have good tools, it still is difficult to tune a piano.

It is very important to turn the pins in around the middle of their axis. This is difficult. If you do not manage to do so, the string will fall back to the un - tuned state quite quickly.

That means: you have real hard work to tune all these strings and some few weeks later the tuning is gone again.

I alsways worked for some hours, managed to tune the piano quite well (not perfect) and after some weeks it was out of tune again.

Now I call a professional person to tune my piano

Well said Doug Gifford. I once offered to tune a piano up in my local pub, and after a long and very frustrating afternoon, got a bloke in to do it for

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and say get a pro. I've always read and heard that tuning a piano is not a good do-it-yourself endeavor

Oscar Oppornockity will tune your piano and will get it right the FIRST time, because...

Oppornockity only tunes once.

I'll add my vote for hiring a pro to do it, it's so very worth it.

At the very least, if you insist on doing it yourself, PLEASE get a real tuning wrench. Don't risk rounding over the corners of the tuning pegs with a 12-point socket, or (shudder!) a plain ol' wrench.

I'm a piano tuner and I think what you're referring to is a tuning hammer. If you want to tune a piano you need one, preferably one that extends. Also you will need a variety of tips and heads of different sizes, angles, and depths etc. etc. A decent hammer costs about 100 dollars. Tips cost about 10 bucks. Heads are about 10-15 bucks. The head is what actually screws onto the tuning hammer and then the tip screws onto that. I say go for it. Try it, why not? But in the end you'll probably want a professional. You're also going to want some rubber mutes which are super cheap and you buy 'em by the dozen. BTW a tuning should only take roughly an hour. That's with or without an electronic device and the piano being in terrible shape.

I'm in the process of tuning one right now. I'm "storing" it for a friend. I started last night, did about a fifth, and tonight I did an octave and a half. It's tiring! I suppose someone with experience could go through a piano that's not too far out of tune pretty quickly. I bought a tuning kit that included a hammer with a changeable head, some mutes (I bought extras with wire handles), and an electronic tuner (Korg CA-30). Total cost about $100.

http://piano.detwiler.us/

http://members.aol.com/chang8828/tuning.htm

If you've got patience, a good ear, and a piano you're not afraid to screw up, go for it!

Get a pro to do it.

Hey, if you want to listen to some drunk guy's opinion on the 'net on how to tune your expensive piano, then your crazy.

So here goes:

Ya gotta have the mutes; my dad cut up some wineglass corks, and that's what I use on the piano I got from him.

He also gave me a tuning hammer.

Frankly, I would go with someone who knows what they are doing. It is one thing to tune a note or two-- that's no problem, and you'll have to do it if you've got one with some sort of pin block problem where the thing has a note or two which goes out of tune when you start up the heater for the winter.

If you try to do it yourself, i have a tip-- a long strip of really thick (1/4") felt is handy for muting the entire harp so you just tune the middle set of strings (put the felt between each course of 2-3 strings-- and do the middle octives first), to get the instrument into an over all tune. Then you can tune just the middle and inside quick(it helps to have some little wedges, rubber or otherwise for this) and then the middle and left side.

That's the overall process (though, hey- the advice is free and I'm drunk, so you shouldn't listen to me), and i''m sure others will disagree. I wonder why, after years and years pianists are the only instrumentalist other than studio drummers and piep organists who require an outside tuner to come in and tune. Surely there must be some reason, like -it is incredibly complicated to tune a piano-.

Tuned the piano today and it was no problem. I could not find a tunning hammer in stock so I used the back side of a small socket from my socket set for the square drive part and used pieces of cardboard for mutes. The only real problems I encountered where that my tuner did not have much range and would not pick up the last two octaves, would not show sharpes and flats and the last guy tuned it a half step flat twentysix years ago. He put a sticker in it saying the sound board was cracked but I saw no sign of this and had no problem getting it up to standerd pitch. Thanks for the support from those who gave it.