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My Kawai K6 is about two years old now.

Should I tune it once a year?

It is played about once a day, gently, for an hour or less.

It is kept between 62 and 70 degrees (in Oregon, near Portland, fairly moist).
I use a dehumidifier if humidity get above 60.

Thanks.
Mac

Once a year would be a minimum for me, in fact I would do it twice but it depends how good you want to keep it.

Don't wait for it to sound hony tonk before you have it tuned.

Yes at least once per year at the bare minimum. Once you go over a year, many piano tuners end up having to do a pitch raise which adds an additional cost on top of the tuning.

I bought an older Kawai K48A upright piano (circa 1969) from the estate of a pianist/teacher/church organist, who had it maintained immaculately over the years. I still can't believe how stable the tuning on that piano is...

So, it is just more evidence that the frequent maintenance/tuning helps to establish and maintain tuning stability so that having it tuned once a year is plenty.

Good luck!

Rick

Put me in the once per year at a minimum camp. Before I started learning to tune pianos myself, my upright piano was tuned 2-4 times a year, whenever it bothered me. Now, I'll probably tune my piano 4-6 times a year, since I've become more sensitive to tuning and temperament.

Funny how that happens. I was a twice a year guy 'till I started on UTs and ETs. Now I do a full tuning every 3 weeks or so, with touch-ups every few days. The piano is played 5 to 6 hours a day, so touch-ups are necessary.

That is how you learn to tune a piano... repetition, repetition, repetition.

I would say that practice makes perfect, but perfect is pretty high expectation.

Rick

Yes. It seems that, the more I practice tuning, the less perfect the results. I just hope it doesn't kill my enjoyment of performing. My wife has noticed that I frequently stop, when practicing repertiore, and test notes and intervals.