Pandemic pianos

[dfcas]

I've tuned pianos for a living since 1985. Over the years I've seen a lot of badly out of tune pianos, but the last last year has been the craziest. Many of my regular customers are older, and don't want me in the house yet. However, they have been replaced by many people who started playing during the pandemic because they now have an extra hour or more a day since they are not getting dressed for work and sitting in traffic. They get a free or near free piano from a friend, family member, facebook marketplace or craigslist. These pianos typically have not been tuned in 30-40 years and may be a half step or more flat.

 

To get these up to pitch requires at least 2 tunings in one visit. Pianos have about 220 strings and doing them twice is 440 strings. I'm toast after a double tuning and now I don't schedule more than 1 per day if its a new piano to me. Not in my 36 years have I see so many rotten pianos. Being old I try to conserve my body by not tuning over a thousand strings per week.

[Sam CA]

I'm sure it's not fun to tune 'rotten pianos'. How long do you normally spend on a piano that is in a decent shape and only needs 1 tuning per visit?

[dfcas]

Most of an hour, assuming I get some freebies.(strings that don't need tuned).

[Outkaster]

You know my tuner told me the same thing. His father who owned the buisness passed away and he now has both sides of the city and is busy as well. There were almost 500 manufactures or pianos at one time so there is a lot of gear out there.

[Docbop]

Also piano tuners that aren't going to homes to tune pianos because of Covid issues.

 

I got a old Wurlitzer piano and a couple years ago and was interest you open the top lid and you could see where the original owner's tuner wrote the dates he tuned the piano. Then the dates stopped, I don't know if it was because they sold the piano and new tuner didn't write dates or they just stopped tuning the piano.

 

When I worked at the recording studio we had a tuner contracted to come once a week and a price for extra tunings with sessions that required daily tuning. When I worked at the church we had similar deal a tuner that came monthly and set price for extra tunings when necessary for special events. Tuners gave us good rates because they knew they'd make X dollars a month or more. Do tuners try to offer tuning plans to home piano owners like every three months or so. Then you can forecast your income and with regular tuning the amount of time to tune is reduced for you.

[16251]

hold my N2

[Joe Muscara]

I guess it's good that tuners are getting the work though, right?

 

By my book, it's generally a good thing that acoustic pianos are still out there, being played, being saved, etc. I know they can be a PITA depending on condition, but I think the world is better with them than without them.

[Outkaster]

Exactly Joe. I think the same.

[re Pete]

I've been tuning for a long time as a part time self employed tuner. Yes, lots of way out of tune pianos and as said, I had an old lady recently want her spinet tuned after 20 yrs. Action had issues too, so it's not just tuning in some cases until you check it out. When it comes to tuning, lets be honest. If you hire a tuner from a dealer, they usually have a list of clients scheduled each day and will spent X amount of time tuning and go to next client.

My last tuning was for a very serious family who had 2 pianos. They called someone to tune one and I was told he spent 20 minutes tuning and left. They did not like the tuning.

 

One time long ago I applied for such job at a dealer and was asked how fast can you tune. To me, an hour is minimum. I tune it twice, rough it in then fine tune. Unless the piano is just dealing with unisons out, if you adjust the tension a lot, those unisons that sound good will go out of tune faster then 2 passes IMO. Even then, the piano should be played in as some unisons will change and need attention.

That's how I work. I spend about 1 1/2 to 2 hrs on a piano. And face it, you can pitch raise a piano way out of tune and overpull to get it near A440 in one pass, but you increase the chance of string breakage IMO.

I did 3 passes on that spinet. I'd rather do more passes than overpull a lot due the time it would take to replace a string on a spinet. Something I despise with drop actions.

 

Large pitch raises usually need another tuning in a month after settling. The neglect can't be undone in one tuning.

[marino]

Last time, my tech told me that it's time to replace the upper strings. I almost fainted, thinking about the expense...

[SamuelBLupowitz]

Keeping my little spinet in tune since we moved into the new house has been brutal. It was always a little honky-tonky, but until we can afford to beef up the climate control in the house, the studio temperature is consistently closer to the temperature outside than it is in the rest of the house, despite our best efforts, and the last time the tuner came, I started tracking a piano part literally minutes after she left, and I could hear the notes drifting back out of tune as I played. It's rough.

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

.... beef up the climate control in the house.

 

Sounds familiar. I took lessons when I was a kid, on an old upright that was probably 30 years older than I was. I was tuned once that I am aware of in my lifetime. This was in a house with no AC so summertime was typically very humid and warm and winter was cool (65F maybe?) in the house. It is a wonder I'm not tone-deaf at this point; that piano was probably way off!