Tuning

Close-up of a piano being tuned with a tuning hammer in a grand piano's interior.

Electronic Tuning vs Aural Tuning

Before beginning this page, I have to say it is necessary to tune a piano a minimum of once every year to maintain tuning stability. Some require more than once a year. Symphonies and recorder studios tune many times a year.

For more than three hundred years pianos have been tuned only with a tuning fork and an ear. In the 1980’s, reliable electronic tuning devices (known as ETD’s) were developed. I own two of them and often use them to do tonal measurements or pitch raises.

However, different brands and sizes of pianos have these different string scales. These are formulas created by the designer to develop the best tone based on string diameter and length.

Inside a grand piano with its lid open, showing strings and hammers, and a digital tuner resting on the strings.

The aural tuner can use his or her ears to develop a turning formula customized to your piano’s string scale. This method is used by most symphony tuners. It is also required to a certain extent to pass the Piano Technicians Guild tuning examination (which I passed in 1987). If you are interested in a scientific explanation of these processes please click on this link. This brief YouTube video was created by Mr. Mark Cerisano RPT. He is one of the most knowledgeable tuning technicians in North America. He is an author and teacher of piano tuning theory.