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The idea that 6 month tunings will help maintain pitch better than yearly tunings is completely inaccurate in my experience - at least in my part of the country.

Almost invariably the pianos I see once a year are in much better tune than the pianos I see after 6 months, especially if the piano was tuned in the middle of summer or winter. After a certain age, if the piano has received regular tuning, time is no longer the main factor in losing pitch. It's almost all humidity related. I tuned a piano a while back that I had not tuned in 10 years and it was still at pitch.

If the goal is to have an nice sounding piano throughout the year, I would first recommend a client invest in a humidity control system for the piano before spending money on twice a year tunings.

As many tunings as necessary for some years, it indeed can inclued 6 months tuning for 2 or 3 years.

it takes more than that to have pianos that do not loosed a few cts each year.

Then the day of the concert a tuning is due, and even one day before , for recordings for instance.
In studios, concert halls, the pianos are seen twice the day, or once.

I will receive a record made with a tuning I did with PR from 439Hz to 442 Hz, and the last was one year ago (and my tunings are stable generally) The pitch moved due to the humidity variations in the (personal) studio.
year ago, the piano did need 2 tunings on 2 days.
Then he stayed "playeable" for long (was not used for recordings in the meantime)

Yep, I second that. A Concert grand I service stays within 2 cents year round, even though the church sanctuary RH is all over the map. I have a full DC unit in it, and I'm confident someone fills the tanks when needed. It used to change 10 cents or more. I tune it every two months, so I've been able to track it pretty well since the DC install.

I always tell people to tune the same month every year, so the climate matches each time.

+2

I don't about this once a year business. After a week of very heavy 5-6 hours a day practice, some of the unisons on my piano really start to 'brighten', It needs to be tuned at least once a month to keep it tolerable for recital work, and more often (before each performance) as necessary.

Brinestone,

Your gut is right on this one. Go with you regular female tuner. If a piano hasn't been tuned in 15 or 20 years, it's definitely going to require a major pitch raise. Only an amatuer tuner is going to sell a "pitch raise" to a once a year customer

Actually, several technicians in my PTG chapter do this. The amount of time it's been since the last tuning is irrelevant. It's how out of tune it is that matters....

I had a once a year customer today who's piano was 30 cents flat. I also had a first time customer today who's piano had not been tuned in 10 years and her piano was also 30 cents flat. There is no way I would charge my once a year customer for the pitch raise even though I raised it.

It took less than an hour to tune the once a year piano and 90 minutes to tune the 10 year piano even though they were both flat by the same amount.

Jbyron,exactly! Your regular customer gets the best rate. (I am not going to penalize a good customer because humidity got out of hand). Also, when I am familiar with working on the paino, I can get it to pitch quickly

Agreed. It's all about the player and what are their needs for the piano.

Tuning the piano below pitch, when it is in sound enough shape to be tuned to pitch, is hardly better than not tuning it at all, in my opinion.

Agreed. Particularly since it only takes a few minutes for an experienced tuner to restore the tension on a sturdy piano before tuning it.
I have known many pianos to be still in tune a year after such treatment. It's anybody's guess, of course, where the tuning has been between times.

Exactly, rxd. A pitch correction takes me around 15 minutes. After that, I do another quick run-through, followed by a fine tuning. 90 minutes tops. I schedule for six months later before I leave. Six months later, the piano is not all that far from where I left it, and it's usually an at-pitch clean up.

That does not mean that the piano may have drifted a little more than expected. Only due to humidity fluctuations in my opinion.

At worst that give a second pass in the right hand region (and if things are relaly bad I like to put some tension in all the basses before beginning)

Of course selling a PR on a yearly customer is not very good manners, but the new piano is supposed to receive enough tunings to stop drifting, and that mean a few ones with 6 months delay (and even less, depending of the vigourous ploaying or no, of the amount of stabilisation done at the factory, as you know certainly, etc)

On a new piano, the customer is explained that (it is also often written in the factory guarantee in full letters).
It takes a few years for a customer to begin to be a regular yearly customer anyway.

Once he knows he may need mor etunings with the new instrument, if he choose to wait, the main result is that his tunings will be less precise and less stable for years, whatever the tuner and the quality of the piano. Then we have good surprises too.

I do not trust that a piano is find 2cts from the last pitch unless it was exactly in similar mositure conditions, and the strings are old enough (on a 80 yuears old piuano you even can find the piano at pitch, anyway 2 cts for me is "at pitch" in that case)

Now , if the tuning have been done well enough, a professional (but Jazz pianist) musician as my customer need to be obliged to play with a fixed pitch instrument to realize something is wrong with the tuning. Some are more sensitive indeed.

THe major problem of PR on a valuable instrument is bridge tilt.

So to me this is not "tuning" but "repair".

ALl depends of the context and the quality of the instrument.
If raising it to pitch will developp a large S shape and eventualo crack at the front and back of the bridge, some precautions have to be taken.

Also if on one hand the tone is better because the strings are made more elastic, but on the other hand the downbearing quiality lowers as the pressure of the strings is displaced toard the back of the bridge, some manipulations and precautions have to be taken.

ALso, the PR from note 0 to 88 with unison as you go is what put the most torstionnal effort on bridge and on the ribs.

It is not enough to have a njice ETD that allow to PR fast and accurately, other parameters are in the show.

One of the problems with our field is this consistent clinging to selling piano tunings instead of pianos service. These are two very different approaches to the work. The client is not paying me for a tuning really, but is paying me for 90-120 minutes of my time. My time is spent doing whatever I feel will inspire the owner to want to play their piano more, period. That is the goal: Musical enjoyment and inspiration.

Sometimes most of my time can be spent tuning if the piano is really out and has stability or rendering issues. Most of the time I try to balance tuning, regulating, voicing, and cleaning. This means that sometimes I may spend 30 minutes or less actually tuning. Recently I came across a piano I had tuned a year ago, and the tuning sounded great!(I've been servicing this piano yearly for at least 5 years.) I spent the entire time deep needling shoulders, filing hammers, and fitting hammers to strings. By the way, this was a Baldwin Acrosonic.

They're talking about charging the customer for the pitch raise, not not doing the pitch raise.

Quite right.

It depends on how far below pitch the piano actually is. I will easily accept a piano that is at 438 if I'm tuning it in January, and 442 is fine in August or September. Of course this depends largely on the requirements of the player and the particulars of the situation - if they specifically need the piano at A440 I will make sure to leave it there. However, the average client is better served by appropriately floating the pitch and using the time garnered to service other aspects of the piano.

If the "new" tuner was telling you the truth, he made a huge error by not demonstrating to you - via an electronic tuning device - just how flat the piano was. What a silly mistake on his part - you would have known for sure exactly where the starting pitch was at, and you would not be doubting this a year later. Next time a tuner comes, ask exactly where the pitch is before they start tuning.

The first thing I do in a client home is to check the pitch with the client present. I also document starting and setup pitches on my invoices (and in my smartphone) so both the client and I know the pitch history.

In NYC, pianos can easily go sharp by 20 cents in summer and flat by 20 cents in the winter, and it can happen in a hurry. For my clientele, I draw the line at + or - 12 cents. Anything above or below that needs a pitch correction or the client will get a sub-par tuning. If they don't want to pay for that, I explain how the piano will be less stable if we skip it. Most people understand and don't mind paying the extra fee. I also am happy to "float" the pitch anywhere between 440 and 443, as long as the client understands and approves. In many cases, this is the smartest approach and yields the most stability. I never tune below 440 unless there is a structural or historical reason to do so, because almost all of my clients are working musicians that rehearse, and brass/woodwinds can't play flat. Sharp isn't usually an issue at all - many string players prefer it.

Recording studios and performance venues have much tighter tolerances for my decision on doing a pitch correction at + or - 5 cents. (Usually a recording studio piano will only be off by 2 or 3 cents at most.)

For those tuners who don't charge extra for a pitch raise, you are giving away your time and services, and therefore losing money, which makes no sense whatsoever. It's actually unfair to your other clients who paid the same amount of money but only got a one-pass tuning and no pitch correction!

I see it this way: It's not my fault that the piano is 30 cents flat, so if I'm going to give a client a great, stable, long-lasting tuning, I need to tune the piano twice, and they need to compensate me for tuning the piano twice. Very simple.