out of tune piano

[BoliverAllmon]

How often do you have to retune your piano? I am running into a real problem lately. My teacher has been working on getting a rich full sound in my playing. This means I am playing deeper into the keys and with more force. The results are phenomenal. My tone is so crisp clean and wonderful, but the pianos don't like it so much. It took me three weeks to underly untune the piano at church (sunday service wasn't the prettiest) and today I spent a couple hours on the school's steinway and I can already hear it going out of tune and a certain G octave (which I was practicing quite a bit) is so out of tune i can not stand to play that piano. Is this just a freak occurence, crappy pianos, the spirit of Beethoven empowering me or what?

boliver

[BoliverAllmon]

if you are curious as to the way I am playing, i can try to make a little recording of me playing Bach's Prelude in D maj. tomorrow if you want.

[pianistimo]

my piano goes out of tune fairly evenly - so being that i don't have perfect pitch - it can go on like this for some time.  i have wondered at my ability to transpose on my teacher's piano as i play it 1/4 note different at home.  it sounds brighter on his piano.

if i had unlimited funds i would tune four times per year.  it depends on how old the piano is, how tight the pins are, and how wacky your tuner is.  some tuners that are new to the business can do damage by not tuning properly (whatever that is).  as i understand it - overly turning the tuning pins or suddenly deciding to do too much major change to a piano all at once.

pianos are delicate instruments despite their size (i think).  i always try to get the best tuner once a year.  it evens out having a cheap tuner totally ruin it.

[Kassaa]

My grand doesn't like the finale of the third Chopin ballade and the third Prokofiev sonata either . Sometimes when you have repeating notes you just hear the tone going out of tune :\ .

[quantum]

Tuner comes every 6 months.  I can ususally put the piano out of tune in less than an hour.    My playing style led me to invest some knowledge in tuning.  Now inbetween tech visits, I can fix any sour unisons that pop up.  For me that means at least a touch up once a week. 

I would caution those wanting to learn.  Tuning, like piano playing is an art.  You can't learn it overnight. 

[BoliverAllmon]

where did you learn?

[quantum]

I learned mosly from reading books and carefully watching what my tuner does when he/she comes. 

This book is great:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1879511037/qid=1136953337/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-8224802-4308601?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[kamike]

My tuner suggested that I learn to tune unisons myself, and offered to teach me.  I think that's a great suggestion.  I had the piano tuned about 3-weeks ago and already a few notes are going south - mostly the unison.