I live up in the middle of nowhere, and nowhere is where the piano tuners are except here. Not having ever tuned a piano, how hard can it be with all the electronic gizmo's and such to help out? Is this something that can be done on your own with the proper equipment?

oooooooooooooooooooooooooh dear. I don't see this thread ending well.

I can't answer more than to say that I asked my tuner a lot of questions the last time he was here (and I purchased the very basic tools to perform very minor tunings, say, on a single key that gets out of whack, as I have an old piano with issues), and the process was sooo much more complicated and difficult than I would have ever imagined. He was talking about all kinds of things in terms of the tone......oh, what was the word, it has totally escaped me, but it seemed to have something to do with the tone vibrating at a certain resolution....it was so foreign I just had to nod and smile. It wasn't a pitch vibration (like, A 440 or something like that), it seemed to be more of a oscillation in the tone itself, occurring at a certain number of times per second, which was adjusted by him without me ever even hearing what it was he was referring to. Anyway suffice it to say I am quite sure I could never do the overall tuning.
Good luck!

I would say it is not hard. It does need a bit of trying to get a hang of it. I will write a bit more later today.

Don't be discouraged. It is quite doable by an average Joe.

Many of us here successfully tune our own pianos. It is certainly not a simple task but it's learnable. After all, the piano tuners were not born with the ability, they learned it too.

I started because I like to work with mechanical devices, I have a great deal of patience and I can't stand to play an out of tune piano and didn't want to call in a piano tuner every 3 or 4 months.

I am certainly not a concert level tuner but then, I have no aspiration to be.

I made some pathetically poor tunings in the beginning, I'm sure everyone does, even the pro's. However, now I have worked out a tuning for my piano that I really like and I can touch it up whenever I like and now it's essentially always in tune.

Tuners dearly love to try to scare you off with jargon.

I don't know if you would be willing to go through the whole learning curve but it is indeed doable.

Not really. Tuning a piano is not an easy thing to learn to do, with or without an electronic device.
Having said that, I googled U.P Michigan and it looks very likely that finding any technician within a days drive (4hrs there and 4 hrs back) may be tough.
You may have to open a B&B and conveniently invite a MI or WI based tech for a wonderful overnight stay in some beautiful scenery .

An example of what you are facing:
I have 3 sisters. We all grew up inside the piano business. I am the only one carrying on the family business, learning the piano trade from my father as well as honing and developing further my skills at piano trade conventions.
Well one of my sisters moved from the Toronto region to a small mining town out in Manitoba. Her husband was relocated to oversee I mining operation there. After a few weeks/months of her piano aclimatizing, she really desperately wanted it in tune again. No tuner to be found anywhere, she called me and asked how hard tuning a piano could possibly be since I (her little brother) can do it. I cautioned her but off she went.
A couple days later, she called begging to know when I was going to visit her and that I should bring my tools - she had only made it worse.
Luckily in her case, there is a tuner about 1.5hrs away and she just needs to cover a slightly more mileage for his drive (or find others in town to make it worth his while).

Do a little digging, there must be some tech somewhere.

Well - what option have you got?

If there are no nearby tuners, then you had better learn to do it yourself. Luckily it does not require a college degree or a licence.

Temperament?

Nope. Unison out of tune and the tuner was talking about the different in frequencies that can be heard as an oscillation.
You have an Estonia and want to try this yourself, with an electronic tuning device? This will only get you close...

There is also the issue of temperament, not only on the instrument but yours too if you begin to smash wire.

I don't see this thread ending well either. I hope I haven't provided to much jargon....

Since this is not in the tech forum, I can tell you from my own experience. Tuning is learn-able provided you get instructions from a professional tuner; reading books alone is not enough. With a tuning hammer and ETD, you are only 1/4 there. The other 3/4 is tuning process and techniques so you don't damage your piano and your tuning would hold for at least a couple months. When I first tuned my piano a few years ago, it took me more than a day to complete 88 keys.

My advice is: get a pro tuner to do it, whatever the cost might be. Twice or just once a year is still better than DIY.

I don't think it's that bad. Go slowly, read up, be patient, get the proper tools. It is difficult to do extremely well, but it's not difficult to do adequately for the needs of most people. Can you hear? Can you turn a wrench-like device (hammer)?

You can learn what to do in a day or so. Then it just takes about four years of practice before you begin to become proficient.

I have learned to tune my own pianos, and a few for others too. I’ve decided that it is complicated enough so that I’ve gained a lot of respect for real piano technicians.

Take care,

Rick

Disclaimer: I am a true beginner. But I like to tinker with my toys, and figure out things on my own. Preceed with care and common sense. Err on the safe side. After I tried it myself, I appreciate more what the professionals do.

Here is how you do it:

(1) You need a tuning hammer. Socket wrench is not good. The pin is tapered, so only a tuning hammer fits it. The tuning hammer also has fixed handle which is helpful to make necessary small adjustments (the pins are pretty tight and are hard to get to the right point).

(2) You will need an electronic tuner. You can buy it cheaply from Amazon. An alternative is a laptop computer with a mic. There are free programs you can download from Internet for tuning. Professionals don't need this stuff. They only need a fork.

(3) You will need a few wedges and felt, which you can buy at piano supply store. Rubber eraser from stationary stores works too from my experience. But I have also wedges from piano store.

(4) So basically you tune the middle octave by the tuner, and tune the rest of lower and higher octaves by ear. That's it. It takes patient and takes a lot of time too.

(5) For each note, use the wedge to stop all strings except one. Then you can tune that one string. After that you can tune other strings one-by-one by letting them sound with the tuned one. If they are close enough, you will start to hear the "beats". Tune to eliminate the beats.

(6) The pins are hard to turn and very sensitive. A small angle adjustment would change the tune a lot. So don't over tune anything. Turn just a bit at a time. It is hard to get it precisely. The easiest way I found is to turn pass (to the sharp side) just a bit, then tap the handle (in the reverse direction) to loosen it into the right tune.

(7) For other octaves, when they are close to middle, you can use beat as a guidance. The reason I say guidance is that on piano an octave is not precisely 2-times the frequency. It is a bit more than that (that is a psychoacoustic effect). So you really want to listen to it and listen to what feels right to you. The term for it is "stretching the octave".

It takes a lot of time and patience to get it done. But anyone which care and common sense can do it. Indeed, I think every piano player should do it at least once to apprecate your piano and what your technician does. I have only tried this on an old Samick I have. For my new piano, I will have it tuned by professional. But what I learnt in the process is really valuable, and I had fun doing it (and some frustration in the middle ofcourse).

I noticed that you have an Estonia. Maybe you don't want to practice your first tuning on that. But I am a true beginner, so I am always overly cautious on what I do.

Read the warranty! Is the Estonia warranty void if tuning is DIY?

good addition dinachick...

Also, if you are going to try tuning yourself, make sure you know how to restring a little and have appropriate wire gauges on hand.
(Just in case you break something in the high treble especially).

The danger also, not yet mentioned, if you putter around too much with improper technic/experience with the tuning hammer, over time you could loosen up the tuning pin hole to the point that the pins won't hold as well as they should be.
dinachick's line might than be realized.

It is obvious by the posts, that this is not an easy process, not that I though it was. Let me perhaps clarify my motive. As you see, I have an Estonia and I know that everyone here probably knows about this piano. I am also mechanically inclines and not terribly stupid so what the heck, expecially since the piano technitions up here (at least thats what they called themselves) didn't even know what an Estonia was, never heard of it????. Anyone here want them to work on your piano, I'll give them your number???? One guy couldn't pronounce any other piano name except Yamaha (which he owns) Spoke to him for over 30 minutes, and all I heard about was Yamaha, hey, yamaha is a great piano, but not the only one. I think he just wanted to talk to me about his piano rather then working on mine. He even thought a Schimmel was not a very good piano. Eeeks! (my second choice)Couldn't get him off the phone fast enough. So, I looked for plan B and C. There are some tech's listed through the PTG who are about 60-70 miles away, which isen't bad for routine and major work, but I was thinking about that little touch up. I'm hoping however that the tech's that are 60-70 miles away at least know what an Estonia piano is. Haven't had too much conversation with them yet. Thanks for all the input.

Forget tuning anything by ear - including octaves - except for unisons. It's exponentially harder to learn than using an electronic tuner.

Forget buying an electronic tuner. If it costs less than a small laptop, it is not good enough to do the job. If it costs more, you're better off buying a laptop and using TuneLab, which is a remarkable piece of free software. If you have a laptop already, all the better for you. Then you just need to buy mutes and a tuning wrench and you're set to tune.

Read up on the basics of how to use the lever (don't ever pull a note more than a tiny bit sharp etc.), and how to 'set' the pin.

Follow the simple instructions in TuneLab (Help menu) to calibrate the software to your laptop and to calibrate the software to your piano. Both straightforward processes. To calibrate it to your laptop, it's better to use a tone generator of some kind and not a tuning fork.

Once you learn the mechanical basics and you're set up with the laptop, it can be remarkably easy to tune. The main things to learn are tuning a unison (the three strings to themselves) and just getting a feel for the way pins behave. Make sure you get a good quality tuning lever. Don't get the cheapest one you can find.

After doing a few tunings you will likely be able to do a full tuning in less than two hours. If you use the software right, the quality of the tuning can be excellent. Better than some professional tuners out there (like the one I first hired before learning to tune on my own).

If you try to do anything by ear, I pretty much guarantee you will end your day in discouragement unless you have supervision by a professional.

Self tuning is a rewarding experience and can also be a frustration. It will take you many trys before you get a tuning that seems satisfactory. I bought a book and tuning kit many years ago (over 20) and learned by my self with the help of the book. At the same time I was working for a church that had several pianos. I would call the tuner and with my new found knowledge watch them like a hawk. I asked questions and mostly just observed. I am now at the point where I can get a decent tuning on my piano and I tune my brothers piano and the one at the church. I have probably done 50 tunings spread out over a long time and each one sounds better than the last. I agree - get TuneLab 97 - it's a great program. I run it on my laptop and it works remarkably well. Be careful of really cheap tuning kits. A friend of mine had a very cheap tuning wrench and the inside teeth just stripped off. You can buy a nice little beginners kit for much less than $100. You should also get a good readable instruction book. In today's world there are videos on Youtube to help you. I'd say go for it. One thing that I learned early on is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes just tuning one note can cause a chain reaction that will cause you to make things worse than they were when they started. Be conservative and go slow. Learn tuning in a systematic manner and you will be fine. It will be a great skill to have and you will never be sorry you learned how to do it. It's not rocket science, but it is science.

If you plan on learning to tune on your own pianos, be ready for it to sound rather bad until you've mastered the technique.

It generally takes a few years.

The only judge in such case is the result you get in the end.

Some *do* - some *don't* - and some don't know the difference.

Some devices out there are pretty good these days - hell, in the Canadian prairies people used to administer medical help to themselves.

Evil tongues claim, some still do today...

Norbert

The old adage, "the person who represents himself in court has a fool for a client", may also apply here. Your signature shows you own an Estonia L190. This is a world class instrument of great value. Most tuners learn and perfect their craft on old uprights that no one cares if they break. Don't mess with your instrument. There is a bona fide tuner around somewhere who will travel to your home.

Learn, perhaps. Perfect? Probably not!

It would probably be better if tuners learned on concert grands and worked their way down to spinets. Final exam would be on a CP-80.

Look Misha with the Estonia, here's my 2 cents. Just how badly is your piano out of tune, and how picky are you? i.e. when was the last time it was tuned?

Here's the reason I ask. My kids take lessons at a church from the music director, a great musician, on a Yamaha studio that sounds pretty good to me (from just listening to the kids play). It's regularly tuned and in great condition. He complained that it's out of tune enough to really bother him and was calling the tuner next week - I mention I think it sounds great and he plays a few triads in certain keys and sure enough I can hear a slight dissonance. If this is the level your Estonia is out of tune, I'd advise you to forget tuning it yourself and get that pro.

However, if your piano is generally in good tune and just has a few notes that are obviously out, like one of the 3 strings are not in unison with the other 2 and you're hearing a distinct beat, you're in good shape to fix this yourself if you have some decent mechanical aptitude and a fairly good ear.

I mostly disagree with the guy that first answered you - I think his tuner was intentionally trying to scare him away. But, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say if he was tackling a piano that was way out of whack and trying to get it perfect, with the proper temperment and everything, you can forget learning to tune it by yourself unless you get professionally trained and have years of practice.

But, if you're just trying to fix a few bad notes, I totally agree with Old Dog, Roger Ransom, Scoob, and Pianolance. I'm and engineer and mechanic, (so I have decent mechanical aptitude and understood the physics of sound) and about 20 years ago bought a tuning hammer, 2 mutes, and a cheap $20 electronic Korg chromatic tuner and taught myself without the aid of books or videos. You have to have pretty good control of your hands and be able to exert just enough torque on the hammer (wrench) to just barely nudge it or even just lean on it a little - it takes a lot of finese. I've never broken a string, but I can see if someone doesn't have that sort of control how it can easily happen. I totally disagree with the fellow that says forget about tuning by ear. If you have a decent ear and "know" how the scale should sound and can hear the intervals and octaves properly, you can do this.

Yes, at first I was really, really slow but with practice I've gotten quicker and better. I'm no professional by any means, but my piano doesn't have any flat or sharp notes or notes with beats, and pretty much all my octaves sound decent, so I'm satisfied. I've touched up many friends pianos when they had just a note or two off a bit with no problems. I've had a few friends with really old antique pianos (1920's or so, really big uprights, fairly cheap quality, one was maybe a converted player piano) that they picked up for free or next to nothing, hadn't been tuned in decades and due to their finances, were never going to be tuned. So I helped them out and at least brought them into somewhat decent tune within themselves. They sound like old honky tonks but at least they're playable if you're not too snobbish about it.

One more thing - as a DIY tuner, I wouldn't try to get your piano perfectly on pitch either (i.e. A=440). Use your electronic tuner and see on average how much lower (how many cents) it is from perfect and just shoot for that across the board. As long as it's in tune with itself, it'll be fine.

That's my 2 cents. So ask youself: how much tuning does my piano need? How good is my ear? How good are my hands and general mechanical aptitude? Buy a proper tuning hammer, 2 mutes and a cheap Korg chromatic tuner, and you're good to go. Yeah I know some techs will say 2 mutes aren't nearly enough but I'm telling you it's the bare minimum but it can be done.

Thanks all for the input. I did find a guy a couple of hours away that seemed to know what he was talking about that comes to the area on occasion. Gonna give him a try. I do like the idea though of being able to tune a pinao. I guess I'll play around on that old spinet I have.

i have an excellent tuner and get my piano tuned at least a couple times a year; but that said i have learned how to touch up the unisons (that twangy sound) when weather fluctuations cause them to go off the boil. it's not hard to do at all, but i would not try to learn to set the temperament unless i was planning on becoming a tuner.

Well, Years ago, I went to visit a regular customer to find 80% of the bass strings broken. He was a fine musician but no ear for pitch and not even the common sense to stop at the first damage.....'intelligent' guy, too.....educated....used an electronic aid of some sort....The less expensive ones can misread and jump to a higher partial, particularly on lower notes. I'm an easy going guy and used to say, 'yes, have a go'....I think twice, now.....for what it's worth.

Misha - oh, you do have another piano, a cheaper spinet? By all means practice on that first before you touch your Estonia and see if you have any aptitude for tuning! But be warned that a spinet is the hardest thing to tune due to the shortness of the strings! i.e. your "window" of correctness is very small, just a tiny bit of stretch on a short string causes a huge change in pitch. Thus, a concert grand is actually the easiest to tune for the most part.

Being an amateur tuner, I typically don't even attempt to tune the uppermost octave (due to the shortness of the strings) unless a string is really sounding bad, luckily that octave is rarely used. Same with the lowest octave, it's so low that it's really hard tune by ear and only the most expensive electronic tuners work at the highest and lowest octaves.

I totally agree with Entheo and I can believe what rxd says above, some people have absolutely no finese when it comes to turning a wrench and if you don't, you'll break strings. And you don't necessarily need perfect pitch, but you need a decent ear. I will say that my ear has improved the more I've tuned.