F & Q

When I first meet with first time piano owners, I am almost always asked “how often should I tune my piano?”

A new piano should be tuned a least every 6-9 months for the first few years. This helps establish the pianos tuning by “setting” the steel strings into place. Once the piano has been tuned with this method for approx. 3-4 years, you’ll notice that it will hold the tuning better and a tuning once a year should keep the piano up to par.

Older pianos that have been regularly tuned will hold their tuning better. A piano in the home with normal usage will only need a “once-a-year” tuning.

Pianos that are played many hours a day or with more regular usage (i.e. a church, school, private lesson instructional piano) will need more frequent tunings. And it’s not uncommon for me to see a piano like this every 4-5 months.

Even if you don’t play your piano very much, it is going to go out of tune. What effects the tuning is not just “the playing”, but the humidity factor of the air. Seasonal and even daily changes in humidity cause the wood parts of the piano to swell or shrink. This effects the tuning as well as the performance of the piano.

You should wait at least a couple of weeks after you move your piano. Let your paino get used to it’s new home and acclimate to its new environment.  You might find that you will need to tune your piano more than once to ensure a stable tuning in the environment.

It’s not uncommon for me to tune a piano twice in a 6 week period once a piano has been moved. Even older pianos that have had regular tuning.