Does this piano need tuning before every concert?

[@Dubhain82]

When I win the lottery I'm coming to see you. Privilege to watch a true expert.

[@hailemary6534]

This is one of the finest sounding pianos I've ever heard. Love it.

[@MrClassicalMusic1]

This man is a very accurate tuner.

[@RobertsPianos]

thank you MrClassicalMusic!

[@MaximeRaynal]

Excellent video !

[@RobertsPianos]

Merci! ER

[@Gypsyman40]

Question: why are you push/pulling vertical and not horizontal to the strings with the lever? Thanks

[@heavypiano]

I love your videos. Why don't you use a 12 o'clock tuning position for your lever? Or does this piano get tuned often enough that any flag-poling of the pins is not an issue?

[@bamaslamma1003]

That's a first for me. I noticed the extreme treble range on this piano has four strings per note. How common is that? Where does it go from four to three, to two, and one string per note?

[@RobertsPianos]

The fourth string is suspended above the other strings and is designed to vibrate and create harmonics to strengthen or 'fill' the sound of the initial hammer impact. This is an attempt to fix a common problem on pianos which is a weak treble. Makes such as Steinway do not suffer so much. However, due to a smaller hammer and shorter string,​ the treble is hard to craft with resonance. The fourth string is placed in the upper octaves. In fact, it is a little extra work for the piano tuner who has to pluck the extra string in order to tune it. Greetings from Roberts Pianos Oxford, Evan Roberts

[@unequally-tempered]

I find my worst tunings are when making small adjustments and I end up wishing I hadn't touched it. However, the real art of bringing stability to an instrument is to catch it whilst at least two out of every three strings are still in tune so that one's just correcting unisons and one string of the three. So from that point of view frequent touching up is better than full tuning. Noting comments below about rubber wedges, being eccentric I really like Papps wedges . . . deprecated by many. But I find that in the bass because of not full damping one can hear beating coming through from an adjacent string and this can be helpful.

[@Beyondabsence]

Thank you Robert. It's interesting when one thinks it's in tune, and then compares with a perfectly tuned piano recording. It is then that I find my Steinway is no longer perfectly in tune. There might be no issues with unison. Off 5ths, octaves. As you play individual notes and octaves, I might not notice. It's when I play thicker voicings, with dissonant intervals, that the out of tune character becomes evident.

[@BetamaxFlippy]

Now that's something I'd be terrific at.

[@sebthi7890]

i wonder why no more concert halls have Blüthner grands. Specially solo recital or to accompain a singer it would do a much better work than regular new Steinway or Fazioli. I can understand that for great piano concert you also need the quality of a "bestia" to bark though the sinfonic ocean. The excessive volume probably corresponds to the spirit of the time. The audience is too deaf to appreciate the qualities of a fine singing tone. I had the chance to play some chords on Blüthner concert grand in Frankfurt/Oder... fantastic.

[@RobertsPianos]

Yes, it's all to do with power needed for concertos, etc. It would be ideal if concert halls had a Bluthner too so that the player can choose. Marcus

[@BH-2]

I believe Steinway (the American Corp but not the Hamburg factory bit) made halls to sign contracts to maintain their domination in the market. I personally like different pianos for their slightly different sound and audience should be given the opportunities to hear them. On top of those brands you mentioned, I think Bosenderfer, Bechstein, Gotrian, Steingraber, Schimmel (and many more) are amazing too. Not a fan of American pianos like Baldwin though.

[@broadsworddannyboy5057]

Of course it requires tuning - for a start every German tuner will be slating your tuning lever being too small.....we use long levers here and felt wedges...

[@RobertsPianos]

Hi Broadsword, Evan Roberts Marcus' son here. I used a longer lever and felt wedges too. The wedges were given to me by a Dutch piano technician living in Houston, long story. My father has grown accustomed to working with rubber wedges, rest assured the result of his tuning is of great excellence. My father Marcus has trained some 20 tuners who also tune in Oxford, London, Houston, and other parts of the world. I will give him my felt wedges when he comes to visit me in late October at least show them to him. Thank you for the suggestion. Evan Roberts

[@broadsworddannyboy5057]

Roberts Pianos yeah he can definitely tune - l just don't understand why tuners use small levers - when the longer Jahn types, which I use are great..... tuning, a great skill...

[@simontopping3447]

Rubber wedges