How Often Should I Tune My Piano?
Regardless of the type and quality of your piano, they all need regular tuning. But various factors will determine how often you should have this service performed, including your personal preferences.
The Standard Recommendation
Most piano technicians and manufacturers recommend tuning your piano twice a year. This schedule allows for adjustments that accommodate seasonal changes in humidity and temperature, which significantly affect a piano's tuning stability. Typically, these tunings should be scheduled during the most dramatic environmental shifts for the region, but the reality is that tuners can’t schedule all their tunings in just two months of the year.
In the SF Bay Area we do not experience these shifts as much, so we tend to get our clients’ pianos stabilized, then tune them every 1-2 years, typically.
Factors That Influence Tuning Frequency
Piano Age and Condition
New pianos require more frequent attention. When a piano is first manufactured, the strings are stretched and placed under tremendous tension (25,000lbs to over 40,000lbs.). During the first year of ownership, a new piano may need three to four tunings as the strings stabilize.
As pianos age, they tend to become more stable, as the wood settles and the strings lose their eslasticity.
Environmental Conditions
Your piano's environment plays a crucial role in determining how often it needs tuning:
Humidity fluctuations: Pianos are particularly sensitive to changes in humidity. The wooden soundboard expands and contracts with moisture variations, affecting string tension and pitch.
Temperature changes: Dramatic temperature shifts can cause components to expand or contract at different rates.
Location in your home: Pianos placed near windows, heating vents, air conditioners, or exterior walls experience more environmental fluctuations than those in stable locations.
Even in the milder Bay Area climate we see some profound shifts in specific neighborhoods, or in pianos located in older homes, sunrooms, near heating and cooling vents, etc.
Frequency of Use
How often and how intensely you play your piano affects its tuning stability. Professional pianists, music teachers, or families with multiple players might need quarterly tunings. Concert pianos are generally tuned before each performance.
Signs Your Piano Needs Tuning
We don't rely solely on the calendar to schedule tunings for our clients. Learning to recognize these indicators will help you determine if you might need a tuning:
Notes sound "off" or dissonant, particularly in chord combinations
The piano doesn't sound harmonious with other instruments
You notice certain notes or sections sound flat or sharp
The overall tone lacks the richness you're accustomed to hearing
Benefits of Regular Tuning
Consistent maintenance offers several advantages:
Preserves pitch accuracy: Regular tuning maintains the standard concert pitch (A440-A-444), ensuring proper musical training and neurological development of the young pianist's ears.
Improves string stability: Keeping proper tension on the “speaking length” helps settle all the segments of the high tension - 150lb to 250lbs or more - “non-speaking lengths.” This leads to improved stability, and ultimately lengthening time between tunings.
Identifies potential problems: Technicians can spot minor issues before they become major repairs.
Cost Considerations
While some piano owners might delay tuning to save money, this approach often proves more expensive in the long run. Extended periods between tunings often require more extensive work, such as "pitch raises" when a piano falls significantly below standard pitch, which adds to the service cost.
However, if a piano isn’t tuned for 10 years, and has therefore missed 5-10 tunings, it’s still cheaper to do a single pitch raising and tuning every ten years. What’s the downside? The piano probably sounds pretty bad, so it’s likely not being played. It’s also not going to be very stable.
That said, I have 120 year old pianos on a 5 year tuning schedule because they are so darn stable. The downside is that the are not that great mechanically.
So what does this mean for me?
In our practice, we tend to follow up 4-12 months after the initial service, then switch to a tuning interval between 12-36 months. We find that this provides the ideal balance between maintenance costs and instrument care. Your specific circumstances might warrant a different schedule, which we’d be happy to discuss when we service your piano.
