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Will it damage a piano to tune it frequently, for example, once a month? Does that wear out the pinblock faster? or have any other negative effects?
Thanks!


Sophia

Nope! Provided a qualified tech is doing the work, not at all.

Greetings,
I have dozens of pianos that were tuned several times a week for years in recording studios. The stage pianos at Vanderbilt are tuned dozen of times a year. I never noticed any faster loss of tension than the home pianos I service once a year.
Regards,
Ed Foote RPT

I wonder if it could damage the technician's wallet, though. Those things, from what I understand, can only take being opened (for putting money in) so many times before they eventually wear through or fall apart and need to be replaced (which could take quite the bite out of the tech's bottom line - my condolences to those who (especially because of the economy) have to take out hundred-year mortgages just to pay the interest for one month on the wallet purchase :P ) . I'm not using the first wallet I've ever had... and considering I probably open it as much in a year as some busy RPTs open theirs in a day, I would expect theirs to wear out faster.

BTW... what pianos are so unstable that they need a major tuning (possibly even a quad-pass pitch raise, the first couple of which may be chip tunings without any external pitch reference) every few weeks? Toward the other end of the spectrum, I've heard pianos that hadn't been tuned for several years, yet were extremely close (except for the occasional isolated beating unison - for one example a 1959 Hamilton I played some Sundays for several years always had the Bb3 & Eb4 unisons the same amount out of tune over that time frame, and others I've seen were almost spot-on A-440 in spite of not having been tuned for several years.)

I have concert grands that I tune at least 12 times per year. no problem.

Institution pianos in recital halls, which may be subjected to five recitals in a single day during peak season, especially if two pianos are to be played together (such as in piano concertos or four-hand works). In such instances, once or twice a week, minimum.

An incompetent person can ruin your piano in one try. But assuming you have a responsible and skilled person doing the work, no, there would be no harm.

Yes, this can definitely shorten the piano’s life. You run the very real risk of keeping the piano sounding so good that it invites much more frequent playing. Playing the piano frequently and for long periods of time can cause the action parts to wear and can cause the action to go out of regulation. In terms of piano life expectancy you’re far better off tuning it once every twenty years or so. That way it will sound good for just a few months and for the next nineteen odd years the piano will sound so bad no one will want to play it and the action parts won’t wear out nearly as fast.

ddf

As long as your tuner does five minutes action maintenance per tuning (just nipping issues in the bud as they arise) there shouldn't ever be a problem. Loose centres left unchecked in your scale area from lots of heavy hitting by certain tuners can become a real nuisance quickly. Make sure your tuner has their eye on everything!

LOl Del!

Ha, thanks, Del and everyone else who responded. My piano holds tune quite well but I was curious about this, especially wear on the pinblock. Thanks very much!

Very funny Del!

This is one of those piano myths that I hear people say from time to time. In fact, a person told me once, that she had been told by a teacher that a piano could only be tuned a certain amount of times (I think it was around a dozen).

If a piano had badly rusted strings, it wouldn't last very many tunings. Maybe the person giving the advice lived on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Rust doesn't seem to be as much of a problem as you might think! I have tuned some pianos with very rusty strings without breakage, and I have tuned pianos with no rust that wanted to break strings. I believe it has a lot more to do with the stringing scale, and what percentage of breaking strength the wires are at when the piano is at standard pitch.

[/quote]An incompetent person can ruin your piano in one try. But assuming you have a responsible and skilled person doing the work, no, there would be no harm.[/quote]


Can you please elaborate on this? How would an incompetent person ruin a piano in one try?

Obviously, if they just crank mindlessly on all the pins and break all the strings, that would be bad. Short of that, how do you see total ruin coming to a piano in this way?

I think what was meant was that an un-skilled tuner can ruin a good firm tuning in one go - not ruin that piano ...
Whenever I take on a new concert venue, I always insist that they only ever use me, or if I'm not able, then always let me arrange for another tuner .... A tuner that I am sure is capable of doing a professional job. I can then be sure that whenever I turn up to tune that particular instrument, it will only need the smallest of adjustment,and remain in tune throughout the concert. Get a bad tuner, and it's like having to start all over again to get the instrument stable enough to keep in tune under "concert performance" conditions.

I tune one piano, a Yamaha C7 either two or three times every month and another C7 I tune once a month. Personally, I believe the more tunings the better.

It is generally thought that too much "flag-poling" of the tuning pin is hard on the pinblock, especially if done in the direction the string is pulling the pin. Also, tuners do bend pins sometimes. This is most noticeable when de-stringing a piano.

That makes sense - enlarging or "ovaling" the holes in the pinblock, or bending pin, would be bad. Sounds like routine rotational movements of the pin, as would be done by a decent tuner, are not considered to cause excessive wear on the pinblock?

How about overstretching the strings? Does that ever happen with a newbie tuner who will naturally make much larger movements of hammer and pin than an experienced tuner?

The more frequently a skilled tuner tunes a piano inversely relates to how much less we adjust each pin. The actual amount we adjust (rotational) is very small once the piano is pulled up to tension; often its just a small nudge on the lever clockwise and then a touch back to settle things.

Techs that change out pins will notice that if you remove a tight pin, blow out the hole and replace the same pin, it will be slightly looser in fit. The surface of the pin from machining the threads is similar to very fine sandpaper. This is an image of a finely machined surface using microscopy...



If you were to rotate a pin back and forth 180 degrees the same number of times to mimick removing it, the fine dust created from the abrasive contact remains in place and the interference fit (and torque numbers) between the pin and the block remains relatively the same. The fine dust acts as a buffer to the abrasive texture of the pin if its left in place.

In college we had about 10 well used pianos in the tuning rooms that were tuned on every day by learning students. At the end of 2 years I didn't notice any deterioration on them that was noticable.