I’d also add, just so as to be not so generally discouraging, that anyone who wanted to try tuning his/her own piano would be wise to read up on pianos and how to tune them, talk to a piano technician about technique, watch him/her tune a piano, etc. Realize that it is a delicate and subtle task that takes care and patience to do properly. Get good tools, primarily a nice, weighted tuning hammer.
Please don’t do what I saw a contestant on The Amazing Race do a few years ago: one of the challenge tasks they had was to go into a piano showroom and bring one note on a piano into tune. Most of them did fairly well, but one of the guys started out by grabbing the tuning hammer and yanking it like he was tightening a lug nut on a car wheel. I was horrified! He broke the string, of course.
For anyone interested in pianos, especially if you’re thinking of buying one, used or new, I highly recommend The Piano Book. I don’t think it goes into much detail about how to tune a piano, but it is a wealth of information for anyone who is curious about the workings of the instrument.
The smallest form of piano. They are upright and about waist high, as opposed to full uprights, which can be as much as five or six feet tall. The small size of a spinet means its strings are short, its sound board is small, and its action is not responsive. As a result, most spinets have a weak sound and a sloppy touch.
Studios fall between full uprights and spinets. Most uprights are less desirable than most grand pianos because on a grand, the hammers are underneath the strings, and after striking fall away because of gravity. On any vertical piano, the action must do that job. This makes most vertical actions less responsive and sensitive.
My 6’1" grand gets tuned 4 times a year (ish) – it’s a workhorse and gets used for teaching and composing. It also has a dampp-chaser system in it. Regular upkeep tuning, with an outstanding tuner runs me about $95. If for some reason my baby needs a pitch raise/lowering with that, it’d be about $120ish or so. That’s with my frequent-flyer deal.
Excellent! I’ve been thinking about fish ever since I saw the title of this thread. I waited to read the whole thread and was nearly disappointed at the lack of mention of fish. You saved the day!
Organs don’t typically need tuning anywhere near as often as pianos, and it is, obviously, a very different kind of procedure. (You slide little extensions at the ends of the pipes up or down to lengthen or shorten them slightly.) I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that most organs go many years between tunings.
So an organ technician doesn’t need to have as good an ear as a piano tuner, because it’s not really the main focus of his work, as it is with a piano tech.
While we’re on the subject, anyone ever use a thin blanket of felt to cover the strings of a grand? I have a friend who has such loosely laid, and claims that’s to keep the strings from dusting and/or rusting. It sure screws up the sound, and it’s too hard to remove, then put back just for a short practice, so the felt just stays there.
Well, I'm not sure about that; tuning a pneumatic organ with pipes in lofts and the cellar of churches is a whole different adventure.
The tuner needs to work the ranks and yell instructions to swampers scurrying about in the dusty climes (climbs?), all the stops need the same unison/interval relationship, tempered, and the organ has to agree with the piano if the church has one. Metal tone producers don't suffer humidity related pitch swings, but wood and leather parts do, another complication.
Which is to say, lacking the intimate and immediate feedback of tuning a piano.
Bear in mind, these comments are from days of yore. Modern keyboards and methods have likely simplified all this.
