Humidity Control for your Piano | Historical Keyboards

Many people are not aware that humidity can have a profound effect on the tuning and performance of your piano. Humidity is a measure of how much water vapor is in the air, relative to the maximum amount of water vapor it can hold (that’s why it’s called relative humidity!).  Your piano is subject to wide swings in humidity. This is particularly true in the Hudson Valley, where the majority of our clients live. In the summer, humidity levels can go as high as 100%, while in the winter, your heating system can drop the relative humidity in your home into the single digits.

What does this mean for your piano? When the humidity is high, the soundboard and bridges absorb moisture and swell, increasing the tension of the strings and forcing the piano sharp. When the humidity is low, the opposite happens - the soundboard and bridges release moisture and shrink, reducing the downward pressure of the strings and forcing the piano flat. This is why almost all piano manufacturers - and your piano technician - recommend that your piano is tuned twice a year. In addition to forcing your piano out of tune, increased humidity affects the action parts, swelling the wood and increasing friction, which can make your action respond sluggishly (a major cause of “sticking” keys).

How can you mitigate the effects of humidity on your piano? There are several options. The absolute best solution is to have your whole house humidity controlled. This involves either attaching a humidifier to your HVAC system or installing a separate humidifier/dehumidifier system in your home. While this is the best solution, it can be very expensive to install and maintain, and is usually cost prohibitive. 

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Piano Tuning | Piano Tuning And Repair Service

Tuning a piano is the process of adjusting the tension of its strings, thereby altering their pitch, or frequency of vibration, by slightly turning the tuning pins to which they’re attached, so that each string sounds pleasingly in harmony with every other string. This harmony is achieved by tuning the piano according to certain known acoustical laws and aesthetic rules and customs.

How Is a Piano Tuned? Is It Difficult?

To the uninitiated, tuning a piano may seem a simple, straightforward procedure, but it isn’t. The process is complicated by the sheer number of strings and tuning pins (more than 200 of each, the exact number varying with the model), by the high tension under which the strings are stretched, by the tightness with which the tuning pins are anchored in the pinblock, and by the friction points over which the taut strings must slide as they’re being tuned. All of these factors are obstacles not only to tuning, but also to creating a tuning that will be stable for a reasonable length of time, given the piano’s use and environment.

Tuning is also made more difficult by the design element of modern pianos known as loop stringing. In loop stringing, each length of steel music wire in the treble actually forms two strings, which are separated by a sharp bend in the wire where the strings are anchored to the piano’s cast-iron frame. Sometimes these two strings sound the same note and are tuned to the same pitch. Other times, they are parts of adjacent notes, with one half of the wire tuned a half step higher or lower than the other half, the two halves necessarily held at distinctly different tensions. Because all parts of a single wire have a tendency to seek the same tension, loop stringing is a more challenging environment in which to learn how to create a stable tuning.

In addition to physical obstacles, there are acoustical obstacles to tuning. A paradox common to all fixed-pitch instruments, first discovered by the ancient Greeks, is that it’s impossible for all the intervals — thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, etc. — within a perfect octave to themselves be perfect. This problem is dealt with by slightly expanding or contracting — tempering — each of these intervals so that, together, they will add up to a perfect octave. The tuner creates a temperament — a single octave of 13 notes at the center of the keyboard in which every note is tuned in its correctly tempered relationships to all other notes in that octave — and then copies those relationships to all remaining sections of the keyboard by tuning each note to be a perfect octave (or octaves) above or below the corresponding note in the temperament octave.

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Contact Us : Piano Tuner Upstate New York

Piano Tuning And Repair Service Upstate New York

 Action Service $185 Regulation $135/hour

Your piano is made up of more than 10,000 parts, many of which move and all of which are subject to wear. An action service includes action removal and replacement, cleaning, lubrication of all action centers, and tightening of over 200 screws. Piano Regulation is where we can truly make your piano the best that it can be! We adjust 37 steps of movement for each note so that they play with optimal control, power, and dynamic range. Who knew that pianos were so complicated!

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Service your action today! – Piano Restoration | Piano Regulation | New York Piano WorksSite Title

Service your action today! – Piano Restoration | Piano Regulation | New York Piano WorksSite Title

Grand Piano Repair — Blog | Piano Rebuilding Hudson Valley | Piano Finish Repair | New York Piano Works

Grand Piano Repair — Blog | Piano Rebuilding Hudson Valley | Piano Finish Repair | New York Piano Works

Welcome to NY Piano Works! Here to serve you and your piano. Book an Appointment Today. Expert Tuning and Repair.

Piano Rebuilding Hudson Valley — Blog | Piano Rebuilding Hudson Valley | Piano Finish Repair | New York Piano Works

Piano Rebuilding Hudson Valley — Blog | Piano Rebuilding Hudson Valley | Piano Finish Repair | New York Piano Works

Welcome to NY Piano Works! Here to serve you and your piano. Book an Appointment Today. Expert Tuning and Repair.

Grand Piano Repair Kingston — Blog | Piano Rebuilding Hudson Valley | Piano Finish Repair | New York Piano Works

Grand Piano Repair Kingston — Blog | Piano Rebuilding Hudson Valley | Piano Finish Repair | New York Piano Works

Welcome to NY Piano Works! Here to serve you and your piano. Book an Appointment Today. Expert Tuning and Repair.

Welcome to NY Piano Works! Here to serve you and your piano. Book an Appointment Today. Expert Tuning and Repair.

Rebuilding vs. Restoration — New York Piano Works

Rebuilding vs. Restoration — New York Piano Works

Every week, I speak with at least a couple of people who are interested in not giving up on their older piano, but rather bringing it back to a playable condition. There are two ways to do this: Rebuilding and Restoration. Both attempt to restore the piano to its former glory, but the philosophy behind them differs.

Piano Care Info | Piano Rebuilding Upstate New York | Piano Regulation | New York Piano Works

Piano Care Info | Piano Rebuilding Upstate New York | Piano Regulation | New York Piano Works

Here you can see New York Piano Works, Piano Care Info

Services | Piano Repair | Piano Tuner Upstate New York | New York Piano Works

Services | Piano Repair | Piano Tuner Upstate New York | New York Piano Works: A standard tuning is for those pianos that have been tuned in the past 6 months to a year.

Why Tune My Piano?

It may surprise you to learn this, but most of the time you can’t tell if your piano is in tune or not! While most people can hear the gross inharmony of a badly out unison, the piano usually goes out of tune in a more subtle way. 

Pianos fluctuate in pitch with changes in humidity (and extreme changes in temperature). This is why all piano manufacturers recommend that your piano be tuned AT LEAST twice a year. It is normal for your piano to go out of tune with these seasonal changes. Here is a brief description of what happens:

In winter, the air is drier, and this is compounded by indoor heat, which further dries out the air. This causes the wood in the piano - and there is a LOT of wood - to release its moisture and shrink. This causes the piano to go flat, sometimes to a surprising degree. The reverse happens in the warmer months: the soundboard, ribs, and wooden action parts all swell with the increased humidity, which (among other things) increases the pressure of the bridge on the strings, forcing the piano sharp.

These changes often happen in a uniform manner across the keyboard. The whole piano will drop or rise, and sound “in tune” with itself. So why should you get the piano tuned if it sounds pretty much ok? Three reasons. First, having the piano be at the proper pitch is essential for stability of the tuning. The piano being out of tune can make the piano go further out of tune, resulting in additional expense the next visit from your technician. Second, while tuning the piano, various minor repairs and adjustments can be made before they become a problem! New York Piano Works assumes that we will be making repairs and adjustments for 10-15 minutes each visit, and this is accounted for in the cost of a standard tuning. (If you are not using us, check with your technician to see if they include this necessary aspect of piano care. Third, and most important, having the piano at the wrong pitch makes making music less enjoyable - and can actually damage your sense of what is an “in tune” note. When I was teaching, I had a student (high school) who consistently sang 10-20 cents flat. I couldn’t figure out why this was (and we couldn’t correct it) until one day I went to his home and lo and behold, there was an extremely flat piano in the living room! It had altered his innate sense of pitch. A piano at the wrong pitch doesn’t resonate as well, as they are designed to function optimally at the correct pitch.

New York Piano Works (www.newyorkpianoworks.com) is the top Piano Tuning and Repair company serving Albany, Upstate New York, and the Hudson Valley. Schedule your appointment today!