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The harpsichord is a keyboard instrument which predated the piano by several hundred years. Whereas the piano was invented in the early 1700’s and perfected by the 1800’s, the harpsichord goes all the way back to the middle ages. Harpsichords are incredibly complex and a testament to ancient ingenuity. Servicing harpsichords is very different from working on pianos and thus introduces uniques challenges.

One of the first differences between the harpsichord and the piano is the strings. Harpsichord strings are incredibly thin. So thin they can be hard to see with the naked eye unless light is reflecting off of them. The thinnest piano wire is 29/1000 of an inch or .029″. The thinnest harpsichord wire is 8/1000 of an inch or .008″. That is nearly four times thinner. Because it is so thin it is extremely fragile. The strings break easily and must be replaced often. They are also very difficult to acquire in the United States and often must be acquired from Europe. Replacing harpsichord strings requires several specialized tools shown here which include a harpsichord tuning lever, micrometer, coil lifter, and steel wire cutters.

Harpsichords may contain up to four different string registers. This means that when looking at the strings, there are two levels of two strings each, yielding four strings for any given note. This is visually complex and definitely requires glasses. You’ll notice in the photo that some strings travel above the black area, others below.

The mechanics of a harpsichord are completely different than a piano as well. While they may possess a similar style keyboard, the similarities stop there. Notice that harpsichords often have two keyboards, known as “manuals”. Each keyboard triggers a different set of strings. Depressing a key may strike one or two strings, depending on the instrument design, and the setting of the “stops” which are analogous to organ stops. Borrowing from organ terminology the various string registers are called 8′ (8 foot), 16′ (16 foot), and 4′ (4 foot). These names are confusing because we would expect the strings on the 16′ stop to be 16′ long, which they are not. The 8′ register is considered the default in which A4 is at 440 hz. The 16′ register sounds an octave lower with the A4 key vibrating at 220 hz. The 4′ register sounds an octave higher with the A4 key vibrating at 880 hz. On a pipe organ you would double or halve the length of tubing to raise the pitch up or down an octave, which is where the nomenclature comes from. The player can engage or disengage these strings by using foot pedals as shown here. If you look carefully you can see the names of each pedal written on them.

On some instruments the player will use levers like so. You can see the long brass levers on the right side of the keyboard.

Because harpsichords have a frame which is much less strong than a piano, they go out of tune much more easily. Harpsichords must be tuned often. Some makers like Sabathil have a metal frame but most have a wooden frame. This is in contrast to the piano which has a frame made of cast iron.

Tuning a harpsichord is also rather different from tuning a piano. On a piano, each hammer strikes one, two or three strings depending on whether it is in the bass, tenor or treble section. All the tuning pins for a single note are neatly grouped together. On the harpsichord however, the tuning pins that are associated with a given note are scattered about in a seemingly random order. Some pins are much farther back. Some pins are more to the right and others more to the left. Some pins require slipping the tool in between other strings to reach them. This presents a special problem for the tuner because it is easy to become confused and place the tuning hammer on the wrong pin. If not careful, one could easily break a string. To combat this, harpsichords usually have red felt washers marking the location of each “A” note. This helps the tuner to avoid getting lost. Case in point: do you see all three red washers? They all represent the same pitch A, yet they are in no way lined up.

The tuning lever is quite different as well. Piano tuning levers are very long and have a large tip. Harpsichord tuning levers are very small and have a small tip.

L.A. Piano Tuning is proud to offer a full range of tuning and repair services for harpsichords. Click the link below if you have a harpsichord that needs service.

https://lapianotuning.com

A celesta is an instrument which looks like a small upright piano on the outside, but instead of strings on the inside it has a row of “tone bars” like a xylophone. It is quite common in symphony orchestras, but much less so in people’s homes. You may remember the sound of this instrument from the main theme of Harry Potter.

Several months ago, I was contacted by a client on the East coast who had acquired one of these instruments. The celesta had been badly damaged in a flood. We agreed that he would ship it from Florida to Los Angeles and I would attempt to restore it. The instrument arrived wrapped in plastic and the first step was to unpack it.

Once unpacked the next step was to inspect it. The exterior paint and key tops were in decent condition.

However, the screens on the front and back of the celesta were badly dented.

It was only once I opened it that I saw the real extent of the damage. The soundboards were so caked in rust that the dampers were glued to them. Most of the notes would not even play. The bottom was caked with a thick layer of mud that would prove very difficult to remove.

Here is a look at one of the sound bars close up revealing the extent of the rust damage.

The first step in the restoration was to clean the dirt off the bottom. This was much more difficult than one would imagine, requiring several hours and numerous passes with different tools, most notably a toothbrush.

The next step was to remove all the keys from the celesta to gain better access to the interior.

Removing the rust from the tone bars was another challenge altogether. Using off the shelf chemicals was only marginally effective. The key was to employ a more advanced technique called electrolysis. This technique relies on an electric current to break the bond of the rust molecules. It can really work miracles as it penetrates areas that chemicals cannot reach. Here is the sound bar that was initially tested, prior to employing this technique:

The process of creating an electrolysis bath is as follows:

A plastic bin is filled with water.

A small amount of washing soda is added, not to be confused with baking soda or detergent.

Two pieces of metal are inserted into the water, one which will carry a positive current, the other negative. Rebar is often recommended.

The item to be cleaned is suspended in the water and connected to one of the iron bars in a way that will conduct electricity. In this case, piano wire was used for that purpose.

A car battery charger is connected to the iron rods. The negative black wire is attached to the rod which is connected to the item. The positive red wire is connected to the rod which is not connected to the item. This rod is often called the “sacrificial anode”.

The battery charger is turned on and immediately you can see streaks of brown rust traveling from the sound bar to the sacrificial anode. If you look at the photo carefully enough you can see subtle brown lines in the water.

After running for about 24 hours the water is brown with rust.

When we take the bar out the rust is substantially removed. However, there are two kinds of rust. Orange rust, which comes off easily, and black rust which is much more resilient. The black rust must be rubbed off with an abrasive. You may notice that now we can see the name of the note stamped in the metal “D X” which means “D#”.

Now all the sound bars on the top row are removed.

This time, the layout of the bath is modified. The iron bars are placed much closer together to facilitate better conductivity. Also a smaller, deeper container is used.

After running for several days the rust forms a thick foam on top which looks like a batch of chocolate brownies. Although this probably looks toxic, iron is one of the most abundant elements on earth and is not harmful.

After removing the bars from the bath they still need to be polished with steel wool to remove the black rust. This takes several hours.

Prior to putting the bars back in the celesta, it was necessary to clean the upper level more thoroughly. This required about three hours with a damp Q-tip to dissolve the dirt. Notice the how metal wires are crusted with rust. The smaller wires are attached to the damper heads. The longer wires push the flanges which lift the dampers.

Now the wood is almost perfectly clean. The wires will be polished later.

Now the bars are installed back in the instrument. There are thirty bars. This takes about two to three hours.

Now the electrolysis process is repeated for the lower set of sound bars. This runs for several days before all the rust is removed. Then several more hours are needed to remove the black rust. This is done by soaking it in a chemical called Blaster Rust Remover which loosens the black rust substantially. Then it is rubbed off easily with steel wool.

A side effect of the rust on the sound bars is that they became glued to the dampers. This means that many dampers were damaged when the sound bars were removed because the damper felt was torn. All the dampers had to be replaced.

First the old dampers flanges are removed. The damper felts were removed by applying wallpaper remover which dissolves the glue after about one hour. Then the remaining material is cut off with a razor blade. New damper felts are cut from fresh cloth and glued on using plastic cement. Here is what the new damper heads look like:

Amidst all the other challenges, a massive, unexpected, and potentially unsolvable dilemma arose. Each hammer on the instrument is attached to a type of hinge called a flange. Each flange has a metal post attached to it which allows one to modify the mechanical timing. While trying to regulate one of these hammers, the metal post broke off.

I took it to a machine shop who said it was impossible to fix. However, he referred me to a master woodworker named Kurt Gary who believed he could repair it. He drilled many tiny holes around the metal post, then tapped it out with a hammer. He then drilled a clean hole, which he plugged with a wooden dowel. He machined a new metal post, drilled a hole for the post, and inserted it. It was a miracle.

Now a new problem is revealed. If you look in the center of the picture below where one bar is removed, you can see that the white underfelts which support the bar are deformed and also crusted on top with hard brown rust. This can both dampen the sound bar and also cause a rattling noise. This is also due to the fact that they became glued to the sound bars and ripped when the sound bars were removed.

The damaged underfelts were removed in a similar way as the dampers by using wallpaper remover to soften the glue. Then a razor was used to trim what remained. In the photo below you can see that many of the underfelts have now been removed.

Many new problems were becoming apparent at this time. First, some of the screw holes were not deep enough to accommodate their screws. Also, some of the holes were not aligned with the holes on the sound bar. This creates sideways pressure on the sound bar which prevents it from making a sound. These repairs could not be accomplished while the parts were inside the celesta so the bottom deck was removed.

Yet another problem now became apparent. The sound bars sit on top of rectangular resonator boxes. These boxes pick up the sound from the metal sound bars and amplify it, reflecting the sound outward. This is much like the body of a guitar or violin. Once I got a look at the bottom, I could see that much of the wood underneath these resonator boxes was peeling from the celesta being underwater.

All of these repairs again required a woodworking specialist, so I took the part to the same master woodworker I used before. He used a chisel to break off the damaged pieces of wood. He cut new wood to the correct thickness and fastened it using glue, small screws, and nails. It was amazing watching him work.

After he repaired the wood, I brought it back to my shop and added a layer of orange colored shellac to try to match the hue of the existing wood.

Now the instrument was ready to be reassembled. It took several hours of delicate work to get the resonators and sound bards back in the instrument without damaging it.

Finally, after being unplayable for years, the celesta makes music for the first time.

At this point it seems that the journey is almost over. However, now a new chapter begins. Although the major broken components have been fixed, the instrument still has dozens of keys which don’t play properly or don’t sound properly. It requires a process called regulation in which all moving parts are adjusted to their original specifications.

For example, some of the low notes are very noisy due to a double flange mechanism. This design helps get around the fact that the sound bars are wider than the keys. It does this by using a metal bracket to “reach over” from the key to a hammer which is off to the side. Unfortunately, these are old and very noisy. Each one had to be totally disassembled, repinned, and rescrewed.

When replacing flange pins, also known as center pins, it is critical to get the perfect amount of friction. Too much and the hammer will be sluggish. Too little and it will be noisy. This is done by using thin files which are gradated in 1/1000″ increments. This was just one of many mechanical repairs that had to be done to get the proper touch and sound.

Finally, I install the foot pedal mechanism. This too has to be finely adjusted to get the proper timing. Installing this revealed many other adjustments that had to be made with the keys.

Finally after seven months of work and well over 150 hours the journey finally comes to an end. The interior of the instrument has been fully restored.

Over the years, a handful of clients have inquired if it is possible to tune their own piano. Or, after attempting it unsuccessfully, they call me to come in and save the day. This article seeks to address the question of whether in fact one might tune their piano by themselves, rather than hiring a tuner.

The answer is both yes and no. Learning to tune your piano is easy. However, learning to tuner your piano so that it sounds good and doesn’t take all day is very very hard. So do you want to spend a lot of time on something and get a less than satisfactory result?

The first problem is cost. If you want your piano to sound good, then you will need a good piece of tuning software, and a good tuning hammer. The hammer will run you about $300. The software will run you $1000. Throw in a few inexpensive items like mutes and your total is around $1350. There are less expensive pieces of software but they are still going to cost several hundred dollars for something that works. You might be thinking that you could just use a free guitar tuning app, right? Wrong. This would only work for the notes in the center of the piano. All pianos are tuned differently due to something called inharmonicity. Different pianos, based on their length, have different degrees of inharmonicity. That means A5 on one piano is not the same frequency as A5 on another piano. This is something that guitar tuning apps don’t take into account.

The next problem is time. There are about 230 strings on the piano. If you are new, it’s likely you may spend a minute or more on each string. The end result? It will take about four hours to tune your piano. An experienced tuner can do it in about an hour. On several occasions where there was a time crunch I have done it in as little as 45 minutes. True, your speed would go up as you gain experience, but you would need to your piano hundreds of times before your speed improves substantially.

Another issue is risk. Piano strings are fragile. Pull one just a little too far and SNAP! A broken string. You might ask again, “I could repair a broken string, right?” Unfortunately no. An untrained person would be about as likely to change a string on a piano correctly as they would perform arthroscopic knee surgery without training. It’s very difficult and there’s not getting around it. So the answer sadly is no, you could not change a string.

Aside from the inconvenience and time and cost, there is a much more fundamental issue which is quality. You could certainly buy the hammer, buy the software, and pull all the strings. The problem is that it just wouldn’t sound very good. While your professional piano tuner is moving the hammer and tightening the strings it may not seem like much is going on. Actually a lot going on. Many of the arm movements required for fine tuning are so small they are probably invisible to the naked eye. Tuning a piano correctly requires getting these four things in order to within 1/100th of a semitone accuracy:

1. Measuring the octave stretch or inharmonicity of the piano to determine the ideal tuning.
2. Measuring how flat the piano is and calculating how much the frame will bend by adding tension, also known as “overpull”
3. Upon pulling each tuning pin, judging if the pin is twisted and moving the hammer back in the opposite direction to untwist it. This is called “setting the pin”.
4. Judging if, when pulling the pin, the pin is leaning to one side. This is called “flagpoling”. When this occurs the tuner must make an educated guess about how far the pin is leaning and move the hammer to straighten it.

If one fails to take these things into account then one might pull the string up to the correct pitch initially, but the note will not stay there. Within a minute or a day the pin will move and be out of tune again. An experienced tuner can assess all these factors and ensure that not only is the piano perfectly in tune, but it is stable. Does stable mean that it will it stay in tune forever? No but it will stay in tune as long as possible. As the weather changes, particularly humidity, this will drive the pitch up or down. This can be mitigated with a humidity control system, but that is another topic. However, the piano will be far more stable than if one doesn’t address these factors.

The question I would pose to you is why do you want to tune your own piano? For some it’s curiosity. For others it’s cost. For some it’s convenience. I can assure you none of these are worth it, save maybe curiosity. Doing it on your own is very difficult, very time consuming and the piano won’t sound very good. In all my years as a piano tuner many customers have tried to tune their own pianos. None were successful except one young man who spent a lot of time and money and finally got the hang of it. The others wrestled with it and finally gave up, often with a few broken strings.

In summary, life is short. Let the pros handle piano tuning so you can enjoy making music!

Piano tuning is an exciting job. That is undeniable. One gets to work with amazing instruments, solve complex problems, and restore people’s passion for music. But by far the most amazing part about piano tuning is the all the wonderful people I get to meet.

I can’t think of any other job where one can encounter so many people and get to know them on such a deep level. On an average day I might see three new customers, and with each of those customers have an in depth conversation lasting up to three hours. There are many service professionals who get to work in people’s homes, but when was the last time you had a three hour conversation with your plumber? There is something about piano tuning, perhaps the connection with music, that seems to build immediate trust and invite people to open up.

It’s not only the number of people that always amazes me but the variety. My job allows me to connect with people from all walks of life, every income level, and every part of Los Angeles. Nowadays, especially with advances in technology, one on one contact seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. People are becoming more isolated and also more clumped together in social bubbles with others who are likeminded. The result is mass polarization. People on the ends of the spectrum get pushed farther towards the extremes. Piano tuning is like a bridge. It allows me to spend time getting to know people who I wouldn’t encounter otherwise. Yes, I too have my social bubble.

The conversations I have with my customers are anything but superficial. People will share their life’s story, their conflicts, their successes and their struggles. Many of my customers become lifelong friends or even business partners.

Another aspect about my job that I love is improvisation. I’ve spent my life honing the ability to create music in real time at the piano. After tuning, I will commonly invite my customers to pick three random notes on the piano, then compose a piano sonata on the spot. Here is an example I did for some of kids recently:

While piano tuning has many perks, at the end of the day it is people which really make it rewarding. In short, YOU are the best part about piano tuning!

Pianos are strange beasts. Unlike guitars or violins where there is an established standard for how each string should be tuned, pianos are all tuned differently. This means that if you were to compare two freshly tuned pianos the notes would not match, even though each piano sounds in tune with itself. This article seek to explore why pianos are all tuned differently, how their tuning differs from one another, and why this is critical to getting the best sound out of each instrument.

If you have ever taken a basic physics class, you probably learned that a vibrating string produces something called harmonics. You may have also learned that harmonics are whole number multiples of the fundamental, which is the lowest sounding frequency. It turns out that this is not exactly true but we will get to that later. Let’s take a moment to review what harmonics are.

When a string is plucked, it vibrates back and forth at a specific rate determined by its length, mass, and tension. Change any one of these factors and the string will cause the string to vibrate at a different frequency. The frequency of vibration determines the pitch, which is the perceived height of the note. C-sharp for example produces a higher pitch than the note C because the length, mass, and tension of the string is different. Increasing the length or mass (weight) of a string lowers the pitch, while increasing the tension raises it. This is apparent if you simply look at a piano and notice that the low strings are very long and thick, while the high strings are very short and thin.

frequency = tension / (mass * length)

Strings do not only produce one vibration however. This main vibration is called the fundamental, but there are other lesser vibrations present in the string called harmonics. Suppose a string was tuned to vibrate at 100hz, meaning 100 times per second. According to what we learn in physics class it would also produce weaker vibrations at 200, 300, 400 hz, etc. However, what most of us learn in physics class is unfortunately wrong.

Vibrating strings possess something called inharmonicity. Inharmonicity is a measurement of how far off the harmonics are from their predicted values. As mentioned above, we would expect a string vibrating at 100hz to have harmonics at 200, 300, 400hz and so on. If a string were perfectly elastic, it would indeed produce perfect harmonics. However, due to the stiffness of the string, higher harmonic vibrations travel faster than lower ones meaning as you go up the harmonic series, the values deviate more and more from their predicted values. In other words, the higher you go in the harmonic series, the sharper the notes get. Here is a table showing actual inharmonicity values for middle C:

Partial	Offset	Amplitude
1	0	100
2	1.46	21
3	3.58	8
4	4.85	9.5
5	6.79	3.8
6		1.2
7	13.16	4.3
8	16.91	1.2

As harmonics are in no uncertain terms the ingredients that make up a note, getting a piano in tune means getting the harmonics to be in tune. Therefore, the first step in tuning a piano is to measure the inharmonicity, then calculate the ideal tuning that will yield the greatest alignment between the harmonics. As every make and model of piano differs in terms of the length, thickness and tension of the strings, that means every piano has a slightly different inharmonicity profile. The one exception would be that if you are tuning two pianos with the same make and model, such two Yamaha C5’s, you can then use the same inharmonicity profile.

When you are considering buying a larger vs. a smaller piano, you might be thinking that the only benefit of a larger piano is that it is louder. Actually this is not true. Larger pianos produce purer harmonics, and therefore sound more in tune than smaller pianos. Why? As we mentioned before if a string was perfectly elastic it could produce pure harmonics. Although no string can every be perfect, the more elastic it is the closer it comes to producing pure harmonics. What makes a string more elastic? More length. Pianos which have very short strings have a poor inharmonicity profile because the strings cannot vibrate as freely. That is what gives spinet pianos their nasal tone. On spinet pianos, the last note must be tuned a whopping 50 cents sharp to account for inharmonicity! Pianos which have very long strings have a good inharmonicity profile, and thus produce much purer octaves. A 9 foot concert grand is going to sound much more in tune than a 4’8″ baby grand. If you are thinking of purchasing a grand piano try to get one that is at least 5’6″.

Although this discussion may sound similar to something called Equal Temperament, it is not. Equal temperament defines the ideal tuning for 12 notes in the center of the piano. It makes not stipulations about how octaves should be tuned, and assumes that all octaves are tuned at a 2:1 ratio. Inharmonicity on the other hand deals specifically with octaves and specifies how much “octave stretch” should be used for a given instrument. In the days before electronic tuning devices, tuners simply listened to how the octaves sounded and guesstimate accordingly. Now with the benefits of modern technology we can calculate the amount of octave stretch exactly.

You might be thinking that the effect of inharmonicity is probably so small that only an expert can hear it. Think again. If inharmonicity is not taken into account, the piano will sound so awful that even a non-musician can easily hear the difference. Calculating the inharmonicity is the first and most critical step that we perform to achieving an excellent tuning result.

You might consider it a simple fact of life that a complex musical instrument made of wood and metal such as a piano will slowly deteriorate with time. What you may not realize is that the rate at which a piano ages is totally based on factors that you can control, and that a well maintained piano will last at least one hundred years, if not longer. In this article we discuss the factors that cause a piano to age, and what you can do to protect your instrument.

The Sun

The first factor that will cause your instrument to age is the sun. Sunlight exposes the piano to ultraviolet rays which will cause the paint to fade, and the wood to crack. In addition to ultraviolet light, the sun produces heat which over time will cause the piano to expand and contract putting stress on the moving parts, and throwing it out of tune. Placing the piano as far as possible from a large window is strongly recommended. If the only space in your home is near a window, a piano cover or large blanket will help greatly.

Accidents

Careless accidents that can easily be avoided are the main reason for the chips, scratches, dents, and dings you see on the outside of old pianos. This may happen when you are moving a large object near the piano and the two collide. Or it may happen when you are moving the piano itself. If you are moving your piano more than a few feet ALWAYS HIRE PROFESSIONAL PIANO MOVERS. If you hire laypeople, or use regular movers, there is a 50% chance your piano will get damaged. You might be thinking, “No problem. Movers are insured.” Think again. I have never known a client to collect after their piano was dropped.

Other common accidents include spilling wine inside the piano, candles melting on the piano, water entering from a leaky roof, plants on the piano overflowing with water, and scratches on the top from photos or other objects. Never put anything liquid on top of the piano. Avoid putting flowers or anything organic on the piano as this will inevitably end up inside. Avoid putting candles on top of the piano. If you plan on putting the family photos or heavy vases on the piano put a cloth cover on the piano first. The best strategy is to put nothing at all on top of your piano, unless it is a cover.

Humidity

Above all else the main factor that will cause your piano to age is humidity. Unlike guitars that respond more to temperature, pianos are much more responsive to moisture in the air. Whenever the air is humid pianos go sharp. Whenever the air is dry pianos go flat. This constant oscillation between wet and dry cycles cumulatively makes pianos go flatter and flatter over time. In addition to making your piano go out of tune, high humidity will cause the strings to rust and break. This results in an expensive repair that costs thousands of dollars. This repair can easily be avoided by taking appropriate measures.

How to Make Your Piano Last Forever

Fortunately although it is difficult to control the humidity level in your house, it is relatively easy to control the humidity level inside your piano. L.A. Piano Tuning can install a humidity control system on your grand piano which costs only $600. This is four or five times less than the cost of restringing. Also included with this package is a full cleaning and a string and cover. For upright pianos the cost is even less at $200. With this system your piano will stay in tune, the strings will maintain their pristine silver color, and your piano will play like new for many decades to come.

If you a piano owner, and especially if you own an older piano, it is likely you have experienced so called “sticking keys”. This is a catch all term which describes any situation where the key does not play properly. This typically is a mechanical issue involving the moving parts inside the piano which is not in any way connected with the tuning.

There are many kinds of sticking keys. A key may sag halfway down. The key itself may move normally, but when you press it sometimes it does not make a sound. Sometimes this only occurs on a loud forte blow, not on a soft blow.

While it may seem like a straightforward thing to fix, there are dozens of different reasons which might be the cause and it requires an adept piano technician to quickly diagnose the problem. Listed below are many of the common causes.

* NEVER try to lubricate piano parts yourself with over the counter lubricant sprays such as WD-40.  Consumer products will spread lubricant all over the piano potentially ruining the pin block (the pins hold the strings in place), thus ruining the instrument. Piano technicians use a special silicone based lubricant called Protek which is applied very carefully with a needle.

1) The front rail bushings are too tight due to age, humidity, or poor construction. The front of the key has a slit in the bottom which is lined with felt. This moves up and down on a metal pin. The hole can sometimes become tight, causing the key to become sluggish. This is very common for those who live near the ocean. This is the easiest and cheapest problem to fix. The technician simply squeezes the key opening with some special pliers to enlarge it.

2) The balance rail bushings are too tight. The balance rail is further back where the center of the key is located. Similar to the above problem this is an easy fix.

3) The key leads are bulging and rubbing on their neighbors. This is typically only happens to pianos in a humid environment or to lesser quality instruments. Piano keys have lead weights inside them. If the wood swells due to high humidity, which happens a lot if you live near the ocean, it squeezes the lead causing it to protrude from the sides of the key. The effect is like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. The solution is to remove the keys and chip off the excess lead with a chisel. This is a fairly time consuming fix, especially on grand pianos.

4) The key is rubbing on its neighbor. This can easily be tested by removing the neighbor keys. The fix is to better align the keys to avoid collision. Rarely one might have to sand the sides of the key with sandpaper.

5) A foreign object is between the piano keys. This one behaves a lot like #4. The solution is to remove the key. Either the foreign object can then be removed or it just drops down naturally. The most common objects are quarters, paperclips, and rodent droppings.

6) There is a foreign object on top of the keys. Clues to this problem are strange noises emanating from the keys, and also if all the keys in the same area stick. Also an easy fix. Simply remove the object.

7) The whippen flange is sluggish. The whippen is a complex part that allows the hammers to rebound off the strings. It is what made the piano a revolutionary invention in the 1700’s. This is the first part the key comes in contact with when you press it. If it becomes sluggish, the note will not repeat. That means you can play it once, but the second time it may not make a sound. Because this part is not easy to access, typically the action must be removed from the piano. Removing the action is easy on an upright and only slightly more difficult on a grand. On spinet pianos, the amount of time required usually means its not worth it. The easy solution is to lubricate it. If that doesn’t work, it must be repinned.

8) The jack is sluggish. The jack is a letter L shaped piece attached to the whippen. Similar to the whippen flange, the solution is to lubricate it, then if that fails repin it.

9) The jack spring is weak or broken. This is a very uncommon scenario. Usually another issue is the cause.

10) The jack is making contact with the jack stop rail. This produces a very mysterious symptom in upright pianos in which the key is released, drops back down, but the whippen and jack stay frozen in the air. The solution, known to only a few technicians, is to move the jack stop rail forward.

11) The capstan is too high, meaning there is no lost motion between the jack and the hammer. The capstan is a brass knob on the back of the key. It is used to adjust how soon the key should start moving the hammer when you press down. Typically it should move an almost imperceptible amount before the hammer begins to move, meaning there is a very tiny gap. This gap allows the jack to reset when they key is released. If adjusted too high, the jack can’t slip back under the hammer when it is done. The solution is to turn the capstan a few strokes clockwise.

12) The hammer flange is sluggish. This is easy to identify. The piano technician pushes the hammer forward with his hand. If it doesn’t return, the flange is too tight. This is caused by high humidity, age, and less commonly by corrosion of the center pin called “filigree”. It is common for those who live in humid areas. The solution is to lubricate it, and then repin if needed. On some pianos, the hammer has a screw allowing it to be adjusted. The hammer is removed, adjustments are made, then the hammer is replaced. Yamaha U1 pianos have this system.

13) The hammer return spring is misplaced.  Often on older pianos, the spring that helps the piano to its resting position can become disconnected. The solution is to use a special tool to reseat it. Sometimes if the spring is bent, it must be straightened.

14) The hammer return spring is missing. This is a more complex situation which requires removing the action and inserting a new spring.

15) The key slip is rubbing on the key. The key slip is the small piece of wood in front of the keys that hides the key bottom from view. Usually on grand pianos this may be too close to the keys causing the keys to make contact. The solution is to “shim” the keyslip, meaning to insert a business card thus pushing it outward. Rarely there will be screws that one can use to adjust it.

16) The hammer is misaligned and is rubbing on its neighbor. This is a very common issue. If the hammer is not straight, it may touch the hammer next to it, causing both to get stuck. The solution is to loosen the hammer screw, reposition, then tighten. Sometimes a tiny strip of adhesive paper must be added to change the hammer angle. If the hammer is severely out of alignment, sometimes heat must be applied with a heat gun so the wood can be twisted and reshaped.

17) Missing hammer head. In this case, the note will not make any sound whatsoever. The good news is that the hammer head often falls inside the piano somewhere. Amazingly, these can usually be glued back on with wood glue, or sometimes a viscous type of CA glue. The hammer needs to be filed after this to ensure the grooves aren’t misaligned with the string. Piano owners should not attempt to fix this themselves.

18) The Hammerhead wool has become detached. Hammerheads are made of wool which is attached to the hammer under high pressure. If it becomes detached, there is no effective way to attach it. However, your piano technician can prevent it from rubbing on its neighbors by filing it with sandpaper. The piano will still play but the sound will be weaker. This is very common in Baldwin pianos located in humid environments. If you own a Baldwin piano near the ocean, it is important to have your technician install a humidity control system to prevent this.

In short, there are many reasons that a piano key can stick. Contact L.A. Piano Tuning and we can help you resolve your issue quickly and painlessly.

If you are a piano owner, you have at some point needed to have your piano moved from one place to another. This article will explain the does and donts of hiring movers and help you keep your piano from being damaged.

When you are moving into a new home or apartment, it is tempting to have your regular movers move your piano. Every moving company will SWEAR that they have experience moving pianos. Why? Simple. They want your business. The truth is, regular movers do not have experience moving pianos and they treat it with the same care as moving a sofa. The net result: your piano will get damaged.

How likely is it that your piano might get damaged? Are you ready for the real answer? There is about a 50% chance your piano will be dropped. In just one week, for example, I received THREE phonecalls from customers who said their piano was dropped during moving. Three. How many calls like this have I received during all my years as a piano tuner? At least twenty.

A grand piano weighs about 600 lbs. A sofa weighs about 100 lbs. The average mover makes only a little over minimum wage and has little more than a high school education. He sees a piano, attempts to pick it up with one of his friends and quickly realizes it is a lot heavier than he first thought. Not wanting to appear incapable, he uses all his strength and attempts to continue carrying it. Withing minutes his arms give out and that 600 lb object drops from waist level straight to the ground. The wooden frame is smashed causing thousands of dollars in damage. But no problem: the mover is insured, right? Think again. Rarely have my customers succeeded in collecting insurance settlements from moving companies. They simply stop returning your calls.

Recently on of my customers had a baby grand piano valued at about $12000. The mover lifted it from the small end and used so much strength that he literally flipped the piano over. The brass pedals were bent like spoons and had to be special ordered from Japan which took months. The beautiful thing is, all this was captured on the client’s nanny cam. See the video here:

Dropped_Piano

Another issue is that regular movers have no idea how to assemble or disassemble a piano. This means that 9/10 times the pedals to not get attached properly and you need to hire a technician to fix them. Often they loose small parts that are critical and they must be special ordered. Also frequently they do not know how to attach the legs so your piano will be crippled on the floor until someone like L.A. Piano Tuning can come and fix the problem.

What do professional piano movers offer that regular movers don’t. First: Experience. Piano movers are specialists. They have handled thousands of pianos small and large. They know how much they weigh. They know how to lift them properly. They know whether they should bring three movers instead of two. Second: Equipment. Piano movers have a range of special dolleys, straps, and protective cloths to make sure that neither your piano, nor your floors get damaged.

In the same way that piano movers are superior to regular movers, not all piano movers are created equal. I have always used a company called D&J Piano and Organ Moving. No matter how difficult the job, they always came prepared and have never ever damaged my instrument. I have always had total piece of mind knowing my piano was in good hands.

D&J Piano and Organ Moving
(626) 334-1053
(800) 398-9798

Please let them know L.A. Piano Tuning Referred you!

Good luck and happy moving!

The Ins and Outs of Piano Tuning

This article focuses on the specifics of how to tune a piano for the purposes of enlightening piano owners. We will discuss several of the main considerations that must be addressed in tuning a piano properly, as well as some major pitfalls. While few people would assume tuning a piano is easy, it’s unlikely the lay person realizes just how many factors are involved in getting the job done right.

First, let’s just present an extremely general description of the tuning process. A piano has approximately 230 strings, give or take. Each string has a tuning peg attached to it which controls how tight it is. The tightness of the string, among other factors, controls its pitch. The piano tuner, using his ear or a tuning device, pulls each pin using a tuning hammer to make it looser or tighter until the string produces the correct pitch. Sounds pretty simple, right? If it were, piano owners would be tuning their pianos themselves.

One of the first issues that must be addressed is that there is no one standard by which all pianos are tuned. This is not because a standard has not been created. It’s because all pianos vibrate differently, and what sounds harmonious on one piano will be terribly discordant on another. Let’s attempt to understand why. A vibrating string carries many different vibrations known as harmonics. In theory, these harmonics are whole number multiples of the lowest vibration called the fundamental. If the main body of the string was vibrating 100 times per second, then portions of the string should also be vibrating at 200 times per second, 300 times per second, etc. In reality, this only works for strings that are perfectly flexible, which real strings are not. In the real world, the stiffer the string is, the less perfect the harmonics are. A real string might produce frequencies of 100hz, 201hz, 302hz, or something like that. The higher you go up the series, the more distortion there is. This distortion is called inharmonicity.

What does this mean when we tune a piano? It means that if you were to tune an octave perfectly, it would sound out of tune. The reason it would sound out of tune is that the harmonics of the lower note, due to their inharmonicity, would not line up with the harmonics of the upper note. To make an octave sound like its in tune, we have to tune the upper note a little higher than normal to get the harmonics to agree with the note below it.

Every piano has a different amount of inharmonicity. The shorter a piano is, the more problematic it is. The longer the piano is, the less problematic it is. The logic is simple. A longer string can flex more easily. On a spinet piano, which is the shortest type of piano you can buy, the highest note has to be tuned a whopping fifty cents higher than its predicted value to sound in tune. One cent is equivalent to one percent of one note, which means a C which is fifty cents sharp is actually halfway between a C and a C#. On a grand, one might only have to tune the highest note twenty cents sharp, due to the longer strings.

This is the first and probably most fundamental factor that must be addressed by any skilled tuner. Another very challenging issue is what we call setting the pin. The pins that are attached to each string are made of steel. Steel is much stronger than pure iron because it contains carbon, which makes it more flexible, and therefore less brittle. Because it has a small degree of flexibility, when we turn the pin with our tuning hammer, the pin actually twists a little. The problem is that if we tuned all the pins and walked away for a few hours, many of them would twist back. That means that half the battle is getting the piano in tune, and the other half of the battle is getting it to stay there. What tuners do to remedy this problem is to turn the pin a little farther than necessary, then turn it back the other direction. This way it is on pitch, but with no twist in the pin.

Many piano owners may have heard the term pitch raise. Raising the pitch of a piano means that it has gone so long without tuning that the strings are flat. Not just a little flat, but at least ten cents or more. Figure that a piano probably drops in pitch about five cents per year just from sitting. If a piano goes two years or longer without tuning, it’s probably time for a pitch raise. The reason a pitch raise is special is not because the tuner has to move his arm farther to tune each string. It has to do with the amount of tension on the plate which holds the strings. Consider that 230 strings, each with more than 100 lbs of tension, produce a combined load of about 30,000 lbs. Imagine if the tuner pulled each string and increased its tension by ten percent. That would effectively add 3,000 lbs of tension to the piano. This in turn causes the piano to shrink ever so slightly, which then lowers the tension of the strings. The net result is that the piano is now flat again. On average, when you increase the pitch of all the strings, the piano will drop by about twenty percent of the amount that it was raised. For example, if the piano was 100 cents flat to begin with and you tried to do a normal tuning to bring it up to pitch, in the end it would still be twenty cents flat.

Tuners can employ one of two techniques to compensate for this. One is called a “chip tuning”. This means doing one complete tuning on the piano to get it close to pitch, then tuning it again. The second technique involves calculating how much the piano needs to be raised, then tuning it twenty percent higher than necessary so that after it drops, it will be at the right pitch. If the piano is only two or three cents flat to begin with, the rebound effect is nominal and it is safe to do a normal tuning. If the piano is more than ten cents flat, the tuner needs to employ one of the special pitch raise techniques mentioned here. The good news is that once a piano is brought up to pitch, it should remain stable and not require another pitch raise the next time it is tuned.

Hopefully this will give piano owners a solid grasp of the methods involved in tuning a piano. It is also hoped that owners will find a greater appreciation for the amount of skill and training necessary to be a piano tuner. For information about getting your piano tuner, please visithttp://lapianotuning.com

David Mann

Member Piano Technicians Guild