Piano Tuning Course | For do-it-yourself-ers

[@Jazzmentl]

This is a good little course on spot tuning. If ever you find yourself with a note or two out of tune, and you need it fixed, it's a good skill to have under your belt if you're a pianist. I do highly recommend you watch all the videos in this playlist before you have a go at it though. And like Robert points out in another video, it does take a bit of patience. But if you're like me, and it drives you nuts to play on an out-of-tune piano, then you may develop the patience! - ENJOY 🙂 Paul

[@johnbell913]

Excellent video. Thank you from California.

[@robertdepiano]

Thank you Paul.In my piano, the g sound, the strings of which are supported very close to the cast iron frame, is gently tuned out. I will try to improve this sound. If it fails, I will invite you for corrections 😁

[@michaelsmith697]

Excellent video! I love Piano Meter. It’s fantastic and helpful to see a visual of what we are hearing or can’t hear! I find tuning the upper note unisons difficult so I use the Piano Meter app to listen and tune each string separately and it works! Thanks for reminding us about the setting of the pins to even out the tension. Very important.

[@michaelsmith697]

Great video! I use piano meter to tune my Kawai RX6. It does a good job. I can even tune the upper treble - often by one string at a time and I get excellent results! One issue I’ve found is, as I go through the piano , some strings will change… even unifions will go flat exactly the same. Soo I have to retune the tricked back to A440. What’s your method of dealing with this? Thanks!!!

[@McguirefinancialCa]

No matter what, you'll always have to spot-tune. I typically do a full tuning 4 times a year, and I spot tune weekly or even a couple of times per week. I'm always recording so it has to be in tune or really close.

[@maxaudibert5793]

What is “spot tuning”? Great video! Thank you.

[@Jazzmentl]

Glad you enjoyed 😊

[@mr.classicalmusic5607]

I tuned a lot of pianos through the 80's and 90's with a Conn Strobotuner. Using an electronic tuning device is more accurate than tuning by ear. (my opinion)

[@Jazzmentl]

I find it very helpful 😃

[@svengilson]

Not listening for partials? I always listen for whatever partial is obvious and tune that beatless. The next note will usually produce the same partial, just up a half, so It's easy to follow the sequence - or maybe you just didn't want to get into that level of unison tuning..? 🙂

[@michaelsmith697]

Excellent video. Thank you for uploading. I’ve done a few courses in tuning, one unfinished and another short course. I’ve been teaching myself since early 90s. Always had difficulty in setting the unisons. I now use the Piano Meter app which I found excellent! It gives us some room to try and tune as accurately as possible. What I have found is after one tuning of the middle register of my Kawai RX6 7 foot grand, it was flat by 1-5 cents… so I did it again. Flat again. I’m going to redo it and tune to 1 cent sharp and see if it stabilises soo I can get an accurate tuning by working to get the strobometer as still as possible with the needle in Centre position. I only had to raise the pitch generally by about 5 cents, though the piano was lumpy as it’s not been tuned for 2 years… Any advice here regarding how to deal with it going flat?

[@Jazzmentl]

Thanks for your post, to answer your question, if it's only the middle register that's flat, then there might be an issue with the pins not being set properly. You should be able to feel the pin set into its place. This is not an easy thing to do and takes practice and some pianos are easier then others. In fact I just tuned a samick 6ft piano for a concert this past Thursday. They couldn't find a piano tuner in time so I had to do it myself, for my own show. I found it extremely hard to set the pins on this piano. I would set them hit the note hard and immediately it would move down. And it did seem like the middle register was quite hard and the upper register as well. If you are using the pianometer app, then it's not possible for the app to tune flat, as long as the needle is in the centre or a little or a few cents sharp. Let me know if this does not answer your question. Thanks.

[@michaelsmith697]

I’m working very hard on setting the pins. I think what’s happened, is that when tuning with the piano meter, I need to keep manipulating the hammer until the string is in tune AFTER striking the key! Soo that as the notes dies away, it stays right on the 0, instead of going flat as it decays. I’m going to redo the piano tomorrow and touch it all up as some of the unisons have shifted slightly too

[@RAndrewNeal]

Ah, I was doing it wrong. Trying to get an old baby grand that wasn't stored well, which we got for free, to hold tune better. The whole thing sounds like a honky tonk piano, but to a lesser extreme. And that's immediately after I tuned it, with every string in perfect unison, except for the couple highest octaves which I lost patience for and got them "pretty close". It doesn't sound _bad_ (it's got a load of chorus), but it doesn't sound _good_ either.

[@Jazzmentl]

Yikes. That's a tough task to help a piano that wasn't well stored. It seems like you were up to the task though. Good on you. It's okay to take a couple of days to tune. 2 hours here, 2 hours next day. We don't have to do it in one session.

[@RAndrewNeal]

@@Jazzmentl Thanks, good bit of advice. I'll probably be working on it a lot in the coming weeks. First I need to actually set all the pins like you showed, as not doing so correctly was my biggest mistake. And thank you for making these tutorials!