FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How often should my piano be tuned?
The answer to this question depends on many factors, but in general, I recommend having ANY piano tuned at LEAST once a year, even if it isn’t played much. A better recommendation is to have a piano tuned twice a year, just after the seasonal humidity changes in the Spring and Fall. Humidity has the most noticeable effect on the stability of a piano’s tuning, because most of the piano’s important components are made of wood and felt.
If a piano is used frequently in a concert venue, school or church, it may warrant more frequent tunings, especially since the climate in these locations is seldom as stable as the climate in a private home.
If a piano sits for more than a year between tunings, while it may still sound decently in tune with itself, most people don’t notice that it is actually falling below standard A=440 pitch. This usually results in a more time-consuming, expensive service visit, since a pitch-raise is required to make the tuning last. If a piano falls far enough below pitch, it can cause strings to break during tuning, and good stability is unlikely until the instrument can be tuned a few more times.
How far do you travel?
We regularly service pianos anywhere within 70 miles of Kirksville, MO for standard piano tuning visits. Further travel isn’t out of the question, though, especially if several appointments can be made in the area on the same day. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you’re interested in our services, regardless of your location.
Why do pianos go out of tune?
The tuning of a piano is sensitive to many factors, but the most noticeable is humidity. The most important components of a piano are made of wood and felt. These materials are highly susceptible to humidity changes. As wood swells in the summer humidity, it causes the piano to go sharp. As the wood dries out and shrinks in winter, the piano goes flat. This repeated humidity cycle, year after year, also affects the long-term life of the piano. High humidity causes strings and tuning pins to rust, action parts to swell, and glue joints to be stressed. Subsequent low humidity allows action parts to loosen, and glue joints to fail. Good humidity control is EXTREMELY important to preserving the long life of a piano.
How can I help my piano stay in tune longer?
The best way to increase tuning stability on any piano is to keep the humidity as stable as possible. This is quite a chore here in the Midwest, where we have large humidity swings as the seasons change. Many modern homes have decent humidity control, but practices such as leaving windows open frequently in warmer months can easily cause large humidity swings.
Pianos should be as far as possible from frequently-used exterior doors, frequently-opened windows, and heat registers/radiators. It’s a good idea to keep an inexpensive, in-home humidity gauge near the piano, to help in monitoring the humidity trends in your home.
I also strongly advocate the use of Dampp-Chaser Piano Life Saver Systems.
How old is my piano?
Piano age is a tricky, sometimes difficult thing to determine. For most common makes of pianos, age can be determined by looking up the year of manufacture for a specific serial number. Many piano brands have been owned/manufactured by many different companies at one time or other, and this can add to the difficulty in determining age.
This website, the Blue Book of Pianos, gives the serial numbers for many common brands of pianos. If your piano is not listed here, please feel free to email me. I can look up many serial numbers of less common pianos, and can usually find an accurate answer.
Serial numbers are commonly located in one of several places.
In uprights, the most common location is just under the lid, listed on the plate. It also may be engraved into an opening in the plate, or printed on one of the side walls of the inside of the piano. Some makers (such as Wurlitzer and Kimball) etched their serial numbers into the wood of the back of the piano, or a metal tag on the back.
In grands, serial numbers are almost always stamped onto the plate somewhere. Usually, this stamping will be toward the front of the plate, near the tuning pins, directly beneath the music desk. Other common locations are along the sides of the long bars of the plate.
What is my piano worth?
Monetary value of a piano is extremely subjective. It is mostly based upon the piano’s value as a musical instrument rather than how it looks or who manufactured it, although these factors do sometimes have some bearing on the value. We do not offer official appraisals of pianos, but we can help point you in the right direction upon inspection of your piano.
My piano has beautiful ivory keys. Do these increase the value?
Very few pianos have been manufactured with genuine ivory keys since the 1960’s. Many keyboards with original ivory keys have fallen into terrible disrepair simply due to age and use. The keys generally require frequent repair to keep them in top condition, even if they look very nice. Loose, cracked or chipped ivories make the piano more difficult to play comfortably. Since the value of a piano is mostly based on its usability as a musical instrument, usually ivory keys add nothing to the value of the instrument, other than being aesthetically pleasing. Some historic pianos warrant ivory repair, but unless ivory is necessary to the historical value of the instrument, it can be much more expensive than simply replacing the keytops with modern material.
Is my piano worth repairing?
The simplest answer to this question is that every piano is different, and it never hurts to ask. We’re happy to talk with you about repairs on your instrument, and we can usually present you with multiple options for repair.
Whether a piano can be repaired depends on age, current condition, where it has spent its life, whether it has been abused, and whether it can be tuned. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions.