Piano Tuning - What if you dont?

Besides playing out of tune, what happens if you don't tune a piano regularly?

My parents have a 15 year old Yamaha (console) upright that hasn't been tuned for nearly 10 years. Is this going to somehow damage the instrument, is there a maintenance reason for tuning a piano?

Thanks,

<< Besides playing out of tune, what happens if you don't tune a piano regularly? >>

The resulting harmonic cacophony will rattle the dental fillings completely out of your mouth.

Hi, Brendon,

Disregarding the raucous humor of the experts - -

From the lower echelon of piano people in this group, I would comment only that if all the strings stay in unison, and all notes stay within 5 to 10 cents of their correct relationship *to other notes*, the instrument will play quite well. Such an instrument evidently is rare. Most seldom-tuned pianos have terrible unison twang and some notes may in time drift to equal or pass the frequency of adjacent notes, causing considerable dis-harmony. I'm sure you've come across an old upright that had that malady. I owned one that did, a long time ago, and that's when I bought my first, cheap, goose-neck tuning-hammer. So to answer the question, what harm? - - only the additional expense of two tunings to bring it back up to frequency. I just did the two tunings on my 1931 seven foot Baldwin about a month ago, using TuneLab 97 and TuneLab Pro. Before tuning, I couldn't tell it was out of tune except that I had to lower the pitch of my TX7 and Sound Canvas about 20 cents in order to play two-piano pieces with my son. Okay, so that might be considered another harm, but it required just a simple, one-time adjustment and everything worked well afterwards. However, top notes played on my KX88 feeding those two boxes seemed kinda flat, and I think that's what finally make me 'face the music' and tune 'er up. Now, with everything on frequency, the flatness of the top notes on my synth setup has disappeared, so I guess it was worth the effort. Odd how it was the tuning of another instrument that sounded bad due to my piano being out-of-tune ! !

Ah!..... the singing Caco Bell dog! Or does the sound of a singing caco sound like a bell? Would that be a phony bell or a real bell? ..... Does a Caco Bell come in hot and mild versions?

Larry Fletcher Dealer/technician

Doing the work of three men.....Larry, Curly, & Moe

No it really won't hurt it. It can hurt the student, because he never develops a good ear wth an out of tune piano, and it can hurt one's reputation as a musician when one appears oblivious to the bad tuning. And it's kind of hard to call something a 'musical instrument' when it is making noise rather than music.

But as for the piano itself, a few tunings in short succession usually puts things right again. IOW, getting it back to where it will hold in tune will be kind of expensive. But the piano ultimately is not hurt.

Regards,

Rick Clark

Did you say bell metal? In V-pro and wet sand versions?

Don Mannino RPT

Thanks for the replies. The piano in question is hardly played these days, it hasn't been played regularly since I moved out of home, so musically it's not a big deal that it is out of tune and it doesn't sound too bad considering. I just didn't know if there was any mechanical reason why not having it regularly tuned was a bad idea but your responses are reassuring.

Cheers, Brendon

John,

You said this:

However the page you referred us to said this:

The webpage is correct. Yes it is true that a piano let go out of tune badly, then brought back into tune may slip- but it just needs additional tunings until it holds. It's not permanently hurt. Basically- by not keeping up with tuning, you don't really save the price of the tuning, because you just have to pay more later to get it to hold a tuning again.

Regards,

Rick Clark

I apologize if I seemed over the top with that last message. I just can't imagine never tuning a piano I own. Until that post, it had never entered my mind of not ever tuning a piano.

sit down and play music on a piano that is dreadfully out of tune? Probably not. A piano which is properly tuned and maintained can significantly enhance your musical enjoyment. Your family will learn how the composer intended the music to sound at standard pitch.