Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner How do I know it's right or not?

I used to had two tuners tuned my piano, the first one was recommended by a friend, who said the tuner was a violinist, so he must be had a very accurated ears, the tuner prefer to tune the sound little bit higher, because he said that the sound will always go down after played for few months, so by that time, the sound will be perfectly. Unfortunately, I don't have the perfect hearing, so I don't know the sound is tuned right or not, and how high as he said it will be or how accuracy it will be after few months? Fortunately, I have a CD, which I used to play with it, so, after he left, I tried to play with this CD again, then, I found it's too high!

The second tuner was a young boy, I didn't feel like he tuned my piano, all I remember was he trying to sell a piano heat to me.

So, now, my piano is out of tune, and the keys are loose, the left parts are still sound too loud, I really need a real professional to help me sovle the problems, but how can my imperfect ears to know whether the sound is right or not?

Your ears are probably better than you suspect. Usually the best indications for whether a piano is in or out of tune are either bad unisons which give a "metallic" sort of sound or the same notes an octave apart sounding "funny". Some people are more sensitive than others to their piano being out of tune but you can generally trust your ears. Unless you're recording, if it sounds good to you it's good enough.

As to playing with CD, it is possible to have a piano be in tune relative to itself but either flat or sharp relative to an absolute scale (a=440 hz). Usually (though not always) pianos used in recording are tuned to a=440hz so even if your piano is in tune on a relative scale, it may still be flat or sharp on an absolute scale. Again, it's up to you to determine whether this is an issue with you. If you play along with CD's a lot, it might be. In this case, you should tell your technician (and I don't think I'd be calling the young boy again!) you want it tuned to a=440.

Snould you choose, you could buy a relatively inexpensive electronic tuner that would let you check it. I have one for guitar which, naturally only has EBGDAE. Whenever I think the piano needs tuning I go ahead and schedule it but once, just for the heck of it, I used the electronic tuner to verify and it turned out my ears were right, it was out of tune.

Thank you!! Now I only need to find a good technician and buy an electronic tuner

I don't always play with CDs, because my teacher says it's not good and no any helps.
Thanks again.

I wouldn't spend a whole lot of money on one if since your only purpose is as a double check of what your ears are telling you. Here is one that covers C1-C8 and is only $20. I wouldn't spend any more than that for your purpose.

Or you could buy a tuning fork and learn the aural theory of tuning, so you can evaluate the tuning with your own ears.

C7 Player, you are right, the price is very good, but the free shipping service only available in the USA, I guess. So, I'll find out here, thank you for such good idea.

BDB, I actually thinking about to learn piano tuning as long as my only interest is about music, about piano, but a tuner needs very good ears and should be trained from young. I'm toooo late.

No, you need to teach yourself to listen to beats, the wa-wa-wa sound that is the difference between one frequency and a nearby frequency. If you hear that on a single note, it is an indication that the strings on that note are not in tune with each other. If you hear it in octaves, the octaves are not tuned properly.

Beyond that, there are beats in the other intervals. The most easily recognized are those of major thirds, because they are fairly fast, yet the interval is based on the relationship of lower partials than other intervals except for fifths and fourths, which do not beat very fast. The important thing in equal temperment is, as you go up the scale, these intervals should beat faster and faster, and should double every octave.

(If you have a math background, beats should increase geometrically as you play an interval up the scale.)

You do not need to learn how to tune to listen to beats. But if you want to learn to tune, learning to listen to beats is a great first step.

You should also be aware that some recordings will have different pitch centers than others. Some orchestras tune a little higher than 440. Some really old pianos are tuned a bit lower than that. Plus, the recording process itself can affect pitch. There are a lot of variables there. It may be that your piano needs to be out of tune to play with your favorite CD.