Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Raising piano strings to the correct tonality

Hi Everyone,

To get my very old piano (+- 1920) tuned, I asked for a specialist. He told me that my piano strings had dropped down 3 notes. And that’s is a lot he told me. 1.5 notes is normal but 3 is much. So he tuned my piano, but 3 notes lower than normal.

He also said that it is risky to pull up the strings to the right tonality. Because the iron piano frame could collapse, caused by the string tension on the old piano frame.

The only solution would be to tune it up everyday for a bit a whole week and see if it would hold. So there is still a risk of collapsing. But therefore my piano need to be transported to his place which would cost a lot.

The piano is in very good condition regardless its age. I clean everything in and out the piano, replaced al springs and somme felt and lubricated every moving part in it. aswel as mechanic adjustments.

Is there a way that I could do that?

The instrument will most likely require a pitch raise, then tuning in 14-21 days and then another tuning within 90 days. The timeline could possibly be shortened but we cannot hear the instrument nor inspect the framework here.

A piano does not require transport to a shop for pitch corrections.

Basically what has happened here is the technician chosen has taken money for straightening out a scale without improving the scale frequency which is a waste of your funding.

I don't know your specifics but I suspect you could find a lot of experts that would disagree with your "expert" that thinks that raising the pitch slowly would be so much less risky than just raising the pitch on up.

About the only thing I might be a little careful about might be not getting one section of the scale at a much higher tension than another. The raising of the piano up to pitch would be done in steps but I see no reason to stretch that out over a week's time and a piano move to someone's shop. That should be able to be accomplished right where it is in a matter of an hour or two. (Yes, it will need some follow-up tuning in order for it to settle in to the normal pitch.)

I am a little cautious as you seem to have done a lot of the work on your piano yourself. Did I read correctly that you have replaced all of the strings already? That is typically one of the dangers in tuning an old piano that's dropped so far in pitch, string breakage. But if you've replaced them all, I rather doubt that that would be an issue for you.

Was there another reason that the "expert" was wanting to take the piano back to his shop? Does the piano have issues with the wooden framework that holds the metal plate? I have seen pianos where the framework of the piano behind the pinblock was seeing the glue joints failing and no longer supporting the pinblock area of the plate. Something like that could be an issue, and that might be an instance where a tech might want to take it back to their shop and fix that first, before trying to get the piano up to pitch. But none of us on the forum can see such a thing if it exists from here. Are there any bridge problems that need to be fixed? Those, too, are things that I really don't like doing in a customer's home if I can get the piano back to the shop. You haven't mentioned the condition of the soundboard but short of rattles and buzzes, that's probably an area most wouldn't want to touch, and that's probably best.

In your zealous efforts at lubrication, I do hope that you have not lubricated the tuning pins, assuming it has a typical metal pin in laminated wooden block setup. That would make the piano very difficult to bring up to pitch and expect it to stay put and in most cases would probably ruin the pinblock. Not saying you did, just something I wondered about when I read your post.

There could be other factors that you haven't mentioned that we can't anticipate that would change the way I might answer you. But those are the thoughts that came to mind when I read through your post.

Good luck!

First, I would confirm how low it is. There are plenty of places where you can get a pitch standard, usually A440, which is the A above middle C. Play the standard, and then play that A (or whatever note your standard is). If they are not the same pitch, play notes around that A until you find the closest one. That will tell you how far off you are.

Second, a piano will not collapse just because the pitch is raised, as long as it is not raised to an unusually high pitch above A440. Pianos start out at zero, and are raised to A440 or above very quickly. The worst that can happen would be that strings break, and a good tuner can minimize that risk. Pianos never need to be moved to a shop for tuning.

I second what has been said about lubrication. Unless you really, really know what you are doing, lubricating a piano is a bad thing to do.

He said "springs". All-in-all, that's a pretty easy word transposition to make.

There are several points to check before pulling up a piano to standard pitch. In additión to structural and other issues mentioned above, I'll add the condition of the bridges (they may be opened, fissured), the condition of the pinblock and the grip in the tuning pins (they may loose and not hold the pull of the strings).

And the risk of cracking the iron plate, very unlikely if the back structure is fine, but possible.

Oops!! You're right, I did make that mistake.

Hmmm... that opens up some more questions... I wonder what springs the OP was talking about? Hammer butt? Jack? Damper? Trapwork? Lots of ambition there, for sure. And I wondered what his reasoning was. Not saying he was wrong, just wonder what he might have been thinking.

Interesting.

Hi,

First of all thanks a lot for all the answers! I had a very bussy month, so I wasn't able to answer right away.
The springs I replaces were all the Hammer Butt and jack spring. Because they didn't had much tension left and some were broken. The Damper springs are still ok and didn't replace those. The lubrication I used was protek CLP and only lubricated the felt pivot points in the mechanics. It was necessary because the piano wasn't played for many years and the point didn't move as it should. So no tuning pins lubricated. And I replaced some felts. When I had to replace some felts I did all the same type felts for each note. My piano shop recommended me doing that. Btw The tuner was not related to the shop.

I think the soundboard is in good condition. No cracks everything still glued together like it should be. the piano sounds nice. No vibrations or sound board resonances. Also no rusty parts or cracks in the soundboard .

I think I'll be doing the pitch rise myself. Going to the piano shop in 2h and buy myself tuning tools. Got some freeware software application to tune pianos. Yes I double checked the pitch and it really is 3 notes to low . So I'll be very car full in doing so. After the pitch rize I'll ask an other tuner to check everything double and let him do minor correction if necessary. Already checked some tuning tutorials to get some extra info.

Ones again thanks a lot for the info and feedback! I'll keep you guys up to date!

I don't know why, but I just had a vision of my stringing kit float through my head…

(wear eye protection to raise pitch, at least, that is what my friend "Squint" sez.)

Ha ha! 'Same here.

"Squint" was right!

Let us know how it goes, I just pitch raised my piano which was a whole note flat and broke 2 strings in 4th octave. Not a huge deal, really.

Hi,
I just finished, a couple of minutes ago, to pitch raise all strings of my piano. The piano shop specialist told me I could pitch raise the whole piano 3 notes up in one turn. He askt me how old my piano was (+-1920) . I don't know way but he said "In that case don't worry to pitch raise 3 tones in one turn. The piano strings will drop a bit after a day or 2. Then Pitch raise them up again, and again until it stays, then tune perfectly." He also said that it could be possible that some strings would break.

Result: - 2 stings broke ( B0 and one of B2)
- first tuned strings dropped already 1/2 note
- Piano did't collapsed xD for now

This whole thread puzzles me. What is meant by the pitch being off by "three notes"? Or, perhaps, as the OP says later, "three tones"? I could understand "three half-steps," or even that "my A4 key was sounding at the pitch of F#4" -- but I have no idea what is going on with this piano in the first place, how far off pitch it is, what words the assessing tech used -- the way I was taught, talking about a "note" or a "tone" doesn't tell me anything in terms of absolute or relative pitch. I would very much appreciate some of the tech commenters here explaining what they understand about the piano's condition.

I'm thinking the same thing as Dorrie! I'm especially confused by this quote:


Since when is finding a piano 1.5 notes flat "normal"? Is something getting lost in translation?

Anyways, it sounds like the OP is trudging forward. What could possibly go wrong?

[img:center][/img] [img:center]https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2f0hs0ne8xqp81/20150126_161715.jpg?dl=0[/img]

Cracks appearing at the tuning pins only on the middel section. Is this the end of my piano ? : (

It is possibly only damage to the surface veneer of the pin block. Only tuning will tell.

Ok so I keep on tuning ? I don't have anything to lose because it already start cracking the surface. Otherwise I will need to replace the pin block i guess ?

Worst case scenario: I need to replace the pin block. Can I reuse the strings and pins ?

There is usually no savings in materials and certainly not time by attempting to reuse old, worn out, stuff. If the bass strings are in good condition (doubtful) those could be saved, but generally the best practice is to replace and restring.

You might be right!
I removed some of the cracked surface and the block seems to be still ok.

I'll keep you updated!

[img:center]https://www.dropbox.com/s/8n40hjmldxny2hb/20150126_172354.jpg?dl=0[/img]

I agree with BDB - you don't know if it will be a tuning problem unless you try.

I have successfully tuned quite a few pianos that other technicians said were untunable because of such and such crack or other problem.