Piano tuner or DIY?

[essence]

The questipn came up in another thread about doing your own piano tuning, so I though it may be useful to start a general thread about tuning and why or why not one might pay for a professional tuner.

First there is useful information here.

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=71856.0

 I have a PhD in theoretical physics, so know a bit about strings and vibrations. I know it is more complex - real strings are not the same as idealised strings, and there are many interactions going on. Harmonics are not exact multiple of base frequencies,if i was to be mathematical  i would say they are eigenvalues of a multivariate system of equations. Different harmonics have different intereactions with, for example, the soundboard. Why do you think a piano has a 'rich' sound compared with a simple additive synthesis model?

It is of course horses for couses. How valuable/quality is the piano, is it tuning for private practice or a concert etc.

I am NOT a piano tuner,.

The view below are simply my personal views, to be shot down by those with real expertise.

1. Tuning a 'standard' upright for personal practice is entirely different to tuning a concert grand in preparaton for a concert.

2. Piano tuners do much more than tune. They will regulate the action, adjust the tone etc.

3. i have tried to tune myself, on an upright  i purchased for $1000, in 1979, befre electronic tools or youtube tutorials. It ws an improvement, but far from satisfactory. I realised getting it good was going to take significant time and effort.

4. I understand it is quite easy to ruin a piano with inexpert actions, beware. Do not even think about tuning a  =decent grand.

5. Good tuners are not cheap. My finances do not make regular tuning feasible. However, myStreingraber seems to keep tuning fairly stable.

6. Of course ,keep an eye on humidity and temperature in the room. Turn off any radiators. Close sun-facing windows.

7. For the mechanices, this seemed a good description. https://shacklefordpianos.com/blogs/blog/how-to-tune-a-piano

8. the actual tuning process is a lot more difficult than described above. yes, start with octaves, but are otaves really octaves? Next youtune 5ths, then 4th. But these all involve listening to the beats, and the beats are different for 5ths and 4ths.

9. What beats?. This is puraly from memory from what I read a few years ago, but say you are tuning octaves. Middle C and the c below. You donlt listen to beatof the C, you listend to the beats of thre 2nd harmonic. the G. If you play a note, can you hear the second harmonic? Can you hear the beats playing tehtwo notes an octave apart? If you are tuning 5ths, what is the common harmonic? Can you hear it? How fast should it beat?

10. At this point, and having begun an intimate relationship with your beloved piano, you realise you need a third person to make joyful music, and call a professional piano tuner.

11. Or else go buy a good quality digital piano.

12. Don;t try to tell me digital gadgets can do anything more than maybe helping the first stage of getting everything roughly in tune, or if it is for home practice.

13. Do you know how much it is to replace pin blocks, pins and strings on a decent grand?

14 Certainly,purchase a cheap upright and try it out for fun

15. Horses for courses.

16. A professional piano tuning course takes 3 years of study.

https://pianotuner.org.uk/how-do-i-become-a-piano-tuner/

PTG has lots of information.

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It says it takes hours for intial learning, and tens of hours of practice.

Over to the experts.
.
other general articles i found include:

https://www.musicradar.com/news/how-to-tune-a-piano

https://www.ptg.org/about/registered-piano-technician

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Tuniing intervals

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Note that he uses his ear to hear the beats. although the electronic gadget is merely for helping him communicate.

The whole series from Salt Lake Piano Servvice Company seems excellent. But would convince me I would need lots of training and practice to become a piano tuner.

My parting word is maybe a comment that we should encourage the development of the piano technician profession and those who have invested the time and money into passing all the exams and becoming registered?

[aaronsf]

I was a piano technician in a past life, and I can vouch that learning to tune a piano is a difficult endeavor.  Some people think because there are tuning apps that it should be simple and easy.  True, they have made some tuning tasks easier, but if you don't learn the fundamentals (learning to hear beats and how to use a tuning wrench), your tunings will always be sub-par.  I've heard plenty of amateur tunings, and all I can say is, what you don't know really can hurt you.

First there is learning to hear beats, which does not come easily for most people.  They are subtle, and they become more difficult to hear as you ascend the keyboard.  Most people start by learning first to tune a single note so it is beatless...then one moves on to octaves, and from there to fifths, fourths, thirds, sixths.  All this learning takes place on the octave or so around middle C.  Why is this necessary if we have tuning apps?  Well, while tuning apps can get one close to perfect, if one mistunes a note without knowing the fundamentals of tuning, it becomes difficult to diagnose where you made a mistake. 

Equally difficult is learning to use a tuning wrench.  The movements of the wrench to achieve the desired result are subtle and small.  Achieving those often minute movements is hard and takes lots of practice.  The tightness of the tuning pins varies a lot from piano to piano, to make matters even more difficult.

Learning to do all this on one's own is difficult, even more so it one is self taught.  How do you know if you got it wrong?  To really learn tuning, one needs a technician to supervise and give feedback on all one is doing wrong.

Piano regulation and repair is a wholly different area of a technician's work, and it requires years of learning, but that's another discussion.

So my advice is to let the professionals do it.

[essence]

Thanks for overall confirming my thoughts.