Piano Tuner Wilmington DE explains best piano location

As your Piano Tuner Wilmington DE, I am frequently asked where is the optimum location for a piano in the home.  A full explanation requires a little background on the design of pianos.

A piano is resonant, because it is constructed so that the wood of the instrument is under a lot of tension.  The principal structure that amplifies the sound, is also the structure that is responsible for rapid changes of pitch.  That structure is the piano soundboard.  Picture it as a thin dome-shaped piece of wood, with the strings crossing over the dome, with each string attached to the soundboard at a single place, called the bridge. Because each note is a different pitch, the strings need to be different lengths.  Therefore, the location of the bridge on the soundboard is different for every note.

Because the soundboard is dome-shaped and made of wood, it changes shape with changes of temperature and humidity.  The wood expands when either the temperature or the humidity rise, and the wood contracts when the temperature or humidity drop.  If the wood expands, the amount of dome increases, stretching the strings at the middle of the soundboard.  The edges of the soundboard do not change shape as much as the center, so the piano strings located at the top and bottom of the piano keyboard do not change pitch as much.  As a result, the piano goes out of tune to itself:  The strings in the center change pitch a lot, but the strings at the top and bottom change less.

How does this translate to locating your piano in your home?  What you need is the place that has the most stable temperature and humidity.  Typically, that is on an inside wall away from a door.  The worst location in the home is near a door, because the temperature varies so much.  The second worst is near a window, the third is near a heat duct, and the fourth is on an outside wall.

If you have any more questions about your piano, be sure to ask us, Ken Keith Piano Services, your Piano Tuning Wilmington DE expert. We also serve Philadelphia, Easter Shore Maryland, and the southern New Jersey areas.