As your Piano Tuner Wilmington DE , I have often been called to tune a 2-3 year old piano which has not been tuned since it was purchased. As a result, the piano needed extra work than just the usual maintenance piano tuning. The owners were under the impression that since the piano was new, it did not require any maintenance for the first few years. However, just the opposite is true.
A full explanation requires a little background on the design of pianos. Pianos have over two hundred strings which are made of high-tension steel wire. This wire is so strong that it does not stretch appreciably. What it does do, however, is maintain its shape even under significant stress. This tendency to maintain shape results in a new piano string refusing to accommodate to changes it its form. The strings tends to want to stay straight, rather than bend to the position required for use in the piano.
A piano string must bend in several places, in order to work in a piano: It must wind around a piano tuning pin, bend around a top bearing point, kink when it goes through a bridge, and bend around a hitch pin at the back of the piano. High-tension piano wire does not kink easily. It will bend and bow at these different structures when first installed. Over time, with the 150 lbs. pressure exerted on the string, it will gradually kink over the first few years of the life of the piano. As it kinks, the tension on the string will decrease, and the string will drop in pitch. As a result, a new piano will constantly be dropping in pitch for the first two years. Every manufacturer recommends tuning a new piano at least three times during each of the first two years of a piano’s life. If this is not done, the pitch of the piano will drop significantly, so that the piano will require extra work and additional expense to bring the pitch back up to its proper level. The best way to handle piano tuning is simply to schedule it on your calendar. If you wait until the piano sounds bad, that is too late. Most of us would not wait until our car stops running, before getting needed maintenance. The same applies for your piano.
If you have any questions about care, tuning or maintenance of your piano, please feel free to call us at DEPianoTuner.com. We also serve the areas of Philadelphia, Eastern Shore Maryland and Southern NJ.
