Joan's Piano Tuning and Lessons

Hi fine Piano People. I was about to write another article containing useful information about Pianos or Piano Tuning or Learning Piano but then I took my hands off the keyboard, stared at the ceiling and I asked myself, “Isn’t there already so much pertinent information in our stressed out brains? Isn’t it time to give our brains a rest?” So, here’s a piano tuning story from the archives of my memory…

I was called to tune a piano in lower Manhattan (sorry, I don’t tune in Manhattan anymore but if you contact me, I’ll try to find you someone). Anyway, I went to tune a piano in an apartment in lower Manhattan for a woman named Rivka or Rebecca or something like that. The apartment was cluttered, bathtub filled with newspapers, boxes everywhere. It was hard to even get to the piano. I put my tool box down and spoke a little with Rachel (Ruchel? Hanna?). I noticed most of the lid had been painted white (sloppily) but the rest of the piano was a wood finish. No biggie, lots of people start to refinish or paint their pianos and never finish (they don’t finish finishing :-)). When I opened the lid, I saw more than the typical evidence of life and death in a piano – moth larva, mouse droppings and my not so favorite roach eggs. While I was examining the piano, Rochelle was telling me about her animals - her precious birds. How she lost her precious birds. I was half listening because I was checking the bridges at the bottom of the piano for cracks.

Finally, since it seemed this was of great importance to my customer (and since I really care more about people than pianos…don’t hate me for that), I asked what kind of birds she had. She told me Doves. I closed up the piano and asked her for a rag to see if I could rub off some of the paint on the lid but there was no way. It wasn’t coming off.

I was deliberating if this pushed the limit for sanitary working conditions while Rina was almost wailing about her birds. I asked her how many doves she had and why were they gone? She told me that the health department took them away from her. Judging by the cluttered house and f***l matter in the piano, I could kind of understand why.

“How many birds did you have? “ I asked. “Sixty four!” she answered. Then it hit me. What’s white, looks like paint and is really hard to scrape off your windshield? If you haven’t gotten it yet, I had been trying to rid the piano lid of the p**p of sixty-four birds.

The best part of my job is meeting people in their own homes, when they’re at their best and most authentic. Sometimes though, it can be creepy, disgusting or sad (or all of the above).

Joan's Piano Tuning and Lessons 516-223-4676
Top 8 most asked questions about Piano Tuning

1) What is Piano Tuning?
Inside the piano there are metal strings, that are struck by white, felted mallets called ‘Hammers‘ which create the sound you hear when a key is depressed. If a string is too loose, it is considered ‘Out of Tune’ and the tuner will put a wrench on the tuning pin to tighten the string. If the string is too tight, the tuner will loosen it.
Keys that stick, rattle, buzz or click are in need of repair and are not fixed during piano tuning, though many tuners are also able to fix these problems.

2) Why do I Need to Tune the Piano?
Musical Instruments are tuned to a standard pitch called A440. This means that an A on the piano, at a frequency of 440 vibrations per second, will match an A on a violin or a flute. If a contestant on American Idol sings out of tune, the judges will tell them they’re “Too pitchy!” and the singer might be cruelly tossed off the stage. If your piano is too ‘Pitchy‘, you may hear an unclear, wobbly vibration or a song might not sound the way it should.
Most musicians tune their own instruments every time they play. Unfortunately, if you tuned your piano every time you sat down to play, you might have to sell your house, cars and the college educations of your children to pay for all that tuning…which leads me to the next answer…

3) How Often Should I Tune the Piano?
Taking into consideration that some pianos go out of tune faster than others, here is my recommendation:
A) If the piano is being played by one person between 1 - 4 hours a week - The piano should be tuned every 6 months.
B) If the piano is being played by more than one person, (or more than a total of 4 hours a week), you may want to ask your tuner the next time she comes whether the piano seems overdue. If so, she may suggest tuning it every 3 months.
C) If the piano is only played once a year at Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, Ramadan, Diwali, Kwanza… you may want to have the piano tuned just once a year. If you choose this option, it is best if you pick the same time every year. This way, the piano will go through all the humidity changes of the seasons and the tuner will have to do the minimal amount of tuning. Speaking of humidity changes…

4) How Can I Keep the Piano Tuning Stable?
Here are a few ways to help keep the piano tuning stable:
a) Never play it - I don’t recommend this option but a heavily played piano will go out of tune a little sooner than a piano that’s not played at all.
b) Keep it away from:
- Baseboard heating
- An active fireplace
- A damp basement
- Long Island in general (especially the South and North Shores)
Humidity changes can actually wreck your piano, causing the wood to shrink and swell and the metal to rust. If you must keep the piano in a bad spot, you can help control the humidity with a room humidity system or you can…
c) Install a piano climate control system. These are made specifically for pianos and installed by an experienced tuner/technician inside an upright or under a grand. You can buy either just a dehumidifier (I suggest these for most pianos on the Island) or the whole dehumidifier/humidifier system if you‘ve also got dryness issues in winter.

5) Should I Tell my Kids/Grandkids not to Bang?
Unfortunately, a piano that goes out of tune or breaks from being banged on already has underlying problems so the answer is, no, let those kids bang away. You’ll have to come up with another reason to stop the noise… “Playing loudly causes hair to grow out of your ears,” “Bang and I’ll take away your DS…”

6) What’s Going to Happen if I Don’t Tune the Piano?
- Many tuners would have you believe that horrible things will happen to your piano if you don’t tune it but in most cases, the piano will not suffer much - it’s your wallet that will. If you decide to tune the piano after years of neglect you will probably have to shell out a few hundred to get it back into tune. This is called a “Pitch Raise,” which entails tuning the piano 2 or 3 times to get it back to the correct pitch.
- It is also more likely that a string or two may break during a long, overdue tuning, costing you anywhere from $40 - $150 bucks. Any new string will take time to become stable - usually about a year.
- Your children may be scarred for life! Well, if they play on an out of tune piano, they may have a hard time learning what ‘In tune’ means.
- You may be embarrassed when a talented friend or relative comes over, and blurts out, “When is the last time you tuned this horrid piano??”
- It can’t be played with another instrument. If the piano’s ‘A’ is not quite an ‘A‘, an accompaniment with a flute or violin may sound more like a bad car alarm.
- Wads of dust may accumulate. Most tuners will dust the piano during the tuning at no charge, which brings us to…

7) How do I Clean my Piano?
The Exterior - If you have a Polyester (shiny shiny) finish - Use a soft, dry rag and press hard to rub out fingerprints. For dust, you can dampen the rag just slightly. Of course, the dust will come right back and I haven’t really found anything that will stop that. You just have to know that it’s obvious to you but not obvious to guests, who usually gush over this impressive finish. If you have a Wood finish - I recommend Murphy’s Oil Soap, lemon oil or even Olive oil (though this may make your piano smell a like an Italian restaurant).
The Interior - Please don’t remove the wedding/Bar Mitzvah pics to open up your upright to clean it. Most tuners will be happy to do that when they tune the piano.
The Soundboard of a grand - That’s the wood you can’t reach under the strings on a grand piano. There’s no easy way to clean it and it’s best left to a careful tuner, who will try her best not to scratch the very sensitive wood (because she’s made that mistake once and learned her lesson very, very well)!
The Keys - Key tops, whether ivory or plastic can be cleaned with a slightly damp rag. If there are stubborn black or gray areas, you can dab the rag with a little bar soap, but not too much! Piano keys are made out of wood and you don’t want to get the wood wet. Yellowing is the result of aging and can only be whitened by having the keys removed and bleached or replaced, which can cost you a few hundred or a few thousand - depending on whether the keys are plastic or ivory.

8) How do I Get my Kid to Practice?
Hey, that‘s not my job but maybe if the piano is in tune, your kids may play it. Actually, the biggest motivator is when children see their parents playing!