Have anyone tried tuning a piano?

[Geir]

Hi

I've wanted to try it for a long time, and I've now ordered a tuning set from eBay ( tuning lever and mutes). I always thought it would just be to use a good tuner and take good time to do it right.

Reading about it there seems to be a bit more to it.  There something called Inharmonicity that has to be taken into account.

So I reckoned I needed a bit more advanced software to help me. But pro apps for piano tuners are quite expensive (300$ +).  Then I stumbeled upon "Entropy piano tuner". It seems quite interesting!

Anyways ....... have anyone tried to tune a piano?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c006U2v4yzY

[Blooby]

Hook is now the owner of my sitar because it had too many strings on it.  Bought and sold two 12-strings for the same reason. I just don't think so.

I will watch this thread with interest, though. I just hope I don't see the slow unraveling of your mind though your posts. Okay, maybe I'm projecting a bit.

Blooby

[Hook]

While I have never thought of even thinking about tuning a piano, I do have a very good friend who has tuned pianos for almost 30 years and I just talked with him about this.
He told me that yes you might be able to tune it, but it might not hold and in 3 days it will be out again and maybe worse. Its all in technique. Also be careful raising the strings too fast, even a quarter tone can put too much strain so you have to raise them super slow.
He also mentioned that really old pianos, pre 30 s maybe are not built around a standard tuning and might be meant to be tuned lower...not sure how old your piano is.
I say go for it...if you have forever.
Lastly he's said you could fly him out.
Rock on brother.

[kenny mac]

Sounds like a mind bender to me,I would rather try pushing custard  through the eye of a needle.
Im with blooby,  I pray for your sanity brother.
Tune on.😆

[bruno]

I've seen piano tuners at work many times. Its a real skill and takes hours, good luck!
B

[Hilary]

It depends on the frame of the piano too - some old pianos have a wooden frame and can warp and will never stay in tune.

[WarpCanada]

I would never attempt to tune my piano, it's a an american made grand piano, in a typical home grand piano size (six foot), well made and well maintained, and I can't imagine ever tuning it myself. It takes years to get good at it, and the first thing I'd want to do is make sure that I learned on a piano that's not worth anything north of $500. My grand piano is worth somewhere in the range of $8,000 to $15,000 depending on who you ask.


Second, I would get some in person lessons on tuning a piano, I wouldn't try to learn it via youtube.  Youtube can't see the piano in front of you and help you spot the issues that will lead you into troubles.   Finally, once I had successfully tuned my own piano and it held tune, I wouldn't attempt to take that knowledge learned tuning a $500 upright and pretend I can tune a $150,000 steinway.

I pay to have my piano tuned, once a year on average.   

My cousin is a piano tuner who lives in a different part of the country, and I am sure he wouldn't advise any weekend warriors having a go on any piano worth any money.  If your piano is a $100 craigslist spinet though, fly at er.  The main thing is to go slow and never try to make any string go up more than a little bit at a time.   Remember that you are talking about a huge amount of tension on a harp, and that tuning any string and making any large change on any one string can throw the rest of it out.   It's a delicate and complex system.

If it was me, and I was desparate I think I would settle for making some small changes on some notes that are quite far out of tune, and simply move in the direction of being in tune and then measure and record what happens after 24 hours, and then repeat, so that I would gradually learn the instrument's character and the stability of its tuning.