Re-assure me that I'm not too weird for wanting new piano re-tuned?

[kujiraya]

I bought a new piano before Christmas. It was moved from the air-conditioned showroom to my place on a very hot Australian summer's day. The temperature over here has been record-breakingly high on some days, but quite cool (even a bit chilly) on some other days. Needless to say, the piano was very out of tune when it arrived.

I know that a new piano which has been moved is going to need time to settle in and will require multiple tunings in the first year. So, I waited a couple of weeks over the Christmas period for the piano to get settled in, and then I rang at the start of this year to get the piano tuned.

The day after the piano tuning, I could hear the piano starting to go out of tune ever so slightly, especially in the highest octave. This out-of-tuneness gradually increased until a few days ago, it reached the edge of my tolerance, so, I thought, it's time for another piano tuning.

Up until this point, everything was not really unexpected. But, after I rang to book another piano tuning, the assistant rang back querying why I wanted another piano tuning, when the piano had just been tuned at the beginning of this month?

I replied with what I stated in the 3rd paragraph, and the assistant said they would send a piano tuner as soon as possible to come and tune the piano, but now, I'm feeling a bit weird, because it sounds like the assistant is implying that pianos don't need to be re-tuned so soon.

Am I being obsessive-compulsive or unreasonable or just really, really weird? Or, perhaps the assistant who rang back doesn't know what is proper practice after moving a new piano? Can someone with lots of knowledge and experience in tuning recently moved pianos clarify for me what is good practice, please?

[lostinidlewonder]

Hello fellow Aussie

What type of piano do you have? Cheaper makes go out of tune faster than others.

Changing temperatures is very bad for pianos and does make them go out of tune very fast. Ensure your piano is not in the sun or in a room which varies in temperature a great deal.

Are you sure you have have a competent tuner? Are they members of the Australian Technicians and Tuners guild?

[outin]

I bought a new piano (Yamaha U1) about 18 months ago. New pianos do change tune when they settle to the new environment, so if you are like me and can hear the slightest inconsistensies in tuning, I would not be surprised that you want it tuned often. In general my piano keeps tune rather well, but the drastic changes in temperature in our climate do affect the tuning and there are days it sounds bad. But it will get better and worse, and seems that no amount of tuning helps with that. I have been told by my tuner that a new piano needs tuning more often. But in general I was surprised to learn how hard it is to keep a piano tuned. Concert pianos are tuned for every occasion, sometimes several times a day. So you are definitely not weird, but it might get a bit expensive if you want to keep you piano in perfect tune everyday unless you learn to tune yourself

[kujiraya]

Aussie Aussie OI OI OI! (??)

Thank you both for your replies. I'm feeling much less weird about that assistant's phone call now, LOL!

The piano is a Yamaha C7. It's definitely located out of the sun's way, but the piano stool is separated from a window only by a coffee table where I place all my piano music. I try to keep the window and the curtains closed, but still, I think there is a bit of temperature variation between day and night, and from one day to the next, because that's the climate where I live.

I am getting one more free tuning from the dealership, so I'm not going to be very fussy about the piano tuner, considering that he's free. But, I'll definitely be using my own very good piano tuner/technician when I have to pay for the next piano tuning.

Kuji out.

[lostinidlewonder]

Ausieeee!!!! OI!!! Ausieeeee!!!! OI!!! lo0ol

Well a C7 is certainly a beautiful instrument most especially if you got it new. If it's 2nd hand then of course you could have bought one which pins are slipping, it's a possibility for it to lose its tune so fast. You can certainly ask your own tuner what might cause it to lose its tune so fast, might as well ask the dealerships tuner also to see what they think.

When you are not using your piano it should be completely covered especially if you have a room that varies in temperature a lot. If you live in like QLD the humidity is terrible for pianos to deal with (changes in humidity is worse than temperature change for a piano), that certainly could have effected it a lot especially during transportation. I wouldn't have it open on display all the time even though that's the position I would love to have my grands when I am not using it, they are works of art that should be seen!

You might have an incredibly sensitive ear to the tune of the note, my father is like that he can hear notes going out of tune at microscopic levels and I can't even hear the difference! The piano could have been stored at a constantly cold temperature at the dealership for many years before ever seeing the natural Australian weather. The Yamaha could be from overseas and just totally has had a shock of its life coming into Aus! lol. It could be so many things, but hopefully you sort it out.

[silverwoodpianos]

A new piano requires a minimum of four tunings in the first year. That is one tuning every three months.

As the instrument was moved from a seasonally controlled room to a normal environment there will be some settling in to endure over the next several seasons.

The heat coming from the window will have an effect on the humidity content of the room.

Humidity fluctuations have a greater effect on the wooden structure of the instrument then temperature changes.

A while back I got together with a colleague and we did some experiments with humidity effects.

Here is a posting from last April on my blog and at the bottom is a  link to a photo album of the results of our humidity experiments.

Happy viewing.

https://silverwoodpianos.blogspot.ca/2011/04/humidity-and-piano-sounding-board.html

[benzwm02]

I have found that dealerships don't pay tuners to tune the pianos while they sit to be bought. Once the piano is tuned in the new house it may go out of tune very fast because the dealership was too cheap to have it maintained every six months.

[Bob]

If it's out of tune, it's out of tune.  It doesn't matter how long.  You can hear it after a few days.

Would it be true that the more you tune it, the less it will go out of tune?  If you wait, the pins will slip a little more, the string will stretch a little more, etc.  And when they tune it, it will have to be adjusted farther than if you had it done more frequently. 

[hfmadopter]

If it's out of tune, it's out of tune.  It doesn't matter how long.  You can hear it after a few days.

Would it be true that the more you tune it, the less it will go out of tune?  If you wait, the pins will slip a little more, the string will stretch a little more, etc.  And when they tune it, it will have to be adjusted farther than if you had it done more frequently. 

The ideal condition is to maintain a constant humidity level in the room. It doesn't have to be perfect, someplace in the upper 40% range would do, to 50% or 52%. In the summer if it's anything like here at night we could hit 90% and in the winter with the heat on a room may be lucky if it ever sees 25%. That's much too large a variation to expect a piano to hold it's tune and so they don't. So we air condition the house in the summer and humidify the room in the winter. We don't hold that constant humidity level perfectly but it's better than mother nature's version. My piano hold quite well all summer long, then in the fall it takes a dump and I have tio tune a couple of times coming into winter. After that it's just a matter of a string here or there, literally a string, not the entire unison that needs a touch up. And that's with taking some sort of measure to try and level out humidity conditions.


The OP's piano likely is not used to much variation coming from that showroom condition, then being moved as well ( just as Silverwood suggested). It's going to take a few tunings to get it to hold. If the humidity situation is not addressed then it will still require more tunings than if it is addressed, at that. It's just how wood works, my doors swell in the summer and fit looser in the winter as well for instance.

[timothyap5vm]

No, it isn't strange.  I recently bought a piano from a friend, and it was moved.  They drove over a bumpy road, so it threw it badly out of tune.  A elderly tuner came in, and tuned it up for me.  he was two hours getting it to sound right, and told me it was a really good piano, but needed alot of tuning.

We live in canada, so winters are cold, and hard on wood.  I had the piano tuned in november, and already it is going a little out of tune.  I will likely call the tuner back in the summer when it warms up, but first I have to remove the rubber wheels the previous owner installed.  It raised the piano an inch or two, and makes it a little akward to play on as it is high.  I imagine once I raise it, it will disturb the strings..

[slane]

Many years ago I had the privilege of seeing Roger Woodward playing all of beethoven's concertos over 3(??) nights.
He had  a steinway *and* a bosendorfer for the series, presumably because some concertos sound better on a steinway and some better on bosendorfer. 

Anyway, one night he plays a few bars and stops. Walks off, gets the tuner and he and the tuner start collaborating over the tuning of, as I recall it, one note. The audience became more and more restless until someone called out "We're here to hear Beethoven, not Woodward".
After a bit more tinking, Woodward sent the tuner away and sat down rather huffily to compose himself.

So ... not as weird as Roger Woodward.

[silverwoodpianos]

.... but first I have to remove the rubber wheels the previous owner installed.  It raised the piano an inch or two, and makes it a little akward to play on as it is high.  I imagine once I raise it, it will disturb the strings.

I am wondering what we are replacing the rubber wheels with.

 This is an upright we are discussing now correct? If so, for the tall old uprights the stem and cup style of double rubber wheel castors fits right into the existing hole. As a matter of fact the existing hole from the original castor set is too big and has to be partially filled with materials.

If the plate style castor set was installed then yes the instrument will be too high from the flooring by more than two inches.  Moreover and more importantly if the replacements were not installed correctly there is a chance the piano is standing completely upright at 90° and that makes the instrument dangerous. Tall upright pianos are canted towards the player slightly at 5-7 degrees. This makes them more stable as most of the weight is above the keyboard.

With the original castor set the fronts were slightly smaller in diameter of wheel.

[hbofinger]

Frankly, it is also an issue how much you play on the piano. If you go to a concert in a real concert hall, hang around the hall duriing the intermission. The tuner will be there, fixing unisons and so on. Of course the piano was tuned before the concert.

I was tought the classical school that emphasized "you always project your sound. A true (concert) pianist does not play quiet passages quietly, but simply less loud" My professor was ademant - he would bark at me, "why are you playing quietly?" This is what is happening in a big hall, and the piano, by neccessity, wil be whacked out of "fine tune",i.e. thought the overal temperament wil not be shot, it wil be so off on some notes and unisons you will need to take the hammer to it.

I know the way I play, the piano needs to be adressed once a week or two weeks. I don't call the tuner, I adjust. This is with basically like new pianos I have owned, including Bosendorfer five years old.

So no, you are not nuts, you just have a good and demanding ear!...

[daniloperusina]

A new piano requires a minimum of four tunings in the first year. That is one tuning every three months.

As the instrument was moved from a seasonally controlled room to a normal environment there will be some settling in to endure over the next several seasons.

The heat coming from the window will have an effect on the humidity content of the room.

Humidity fluctuations have a greater effect on the wooden structure of the instrument then temperature changes.

A while back I got together with a colleague and we did some experiments with humidity effects.

Here is a posting from last April on my blog and at the bottom is a  link to a photo album of the results of our humidity experiments.

Happy viewing.

https://silverwoodpianos.blogspot.ca/2011/04/humidity-and-piano-sounding-board.html

There's your reply from a professional!

To clarify a little: pianostrings are made of steel. Steel is a stretchable metal, that's why it's used in strings in musical instruments. New strings need to be stretched a lot before they "settle". So, expect a new piano to be a bit "unsettled". Therefore, many tunings in the beginning.

Secondly, the strings rest on a bridge on the soundboard of your piano. The soundboard is the large wooden structure you see on the backside of your piano. Wood is sensitive to moisture, and thus swells or shrinks accordingly. When it swells it pushes the strings, via the bridge, to go up in pitch, and when it shrinks it does the opposite. That's the cause of the mystery as to why a piano can sound good in april, bad in july, and good again in october without a tuning in-between!:-) The same moisture-condition appearing again, six months later...

Anyway, as a pianist also capable of tuning pianos, how often do I think a piano needs to be tuned? Well, if you don't hear any decline, tune it once a year (a settled piano, that is), if you hear a decline, tune it as often as you want. That's advice for the typical domestic pianist.
If I use a piano professionally, i.e concerts or recordings, I check it and adjust it at every occasion. For teaching, I don't bother unless it's really disturbing. My piano at home I haven't tuned for years, I'm too lazy. So there you have examples of the whole scale between over-zealousness to over-laziness.

And there's a saying: "the piano starts to go out of tune the minute the tuner leaves the room".