This will be most likely the reason you contact me, to tune your piano. I will arrive promptly at the time you set and will be very respectful of your house, for example, I have inside only moccasins I put on. I’ll start with reviewing the state of your piano and any concerns or issues you have. Before I start to tune, we will have discussed what needs to be done and what the price will be. Typically I will then vacuum what can be reached without removing the action although a deeper cleaning can be done at a slightly extra charge.
Being a retired aerospace engineer, I am in no hurry to rush through your tuning. Typically, it will be an hour before I even start tuning. You and I will start with reviewing the state of your piano and any concerns or issues you have. We will have discussed what needs to be done, could be put off till later, can be ignored and what the price will be. I will then vacuum what can be reached without removing the action although a deeper cleaning can be done for those pianos that have built up decades of dust and accumulated coins and toys from years of children.
I initially use an Electronic Tuning Device to begin the tuning which gets put away and finish the tuning aurally, using my ears and listening to what that piano says sounds proper and in-tune.
Some different types of pianos I work with.
An overdamped (also known as a BirdCage) piano in Ripon, England. While not that common in the States, they do exist and was fortunate to get quite an exposure to them. This one was a lot of fun, a “full size” child’s piano. A real piano, just everything in miniature. Tuning a brand new Steingraeber piano during my internship at the factory in Bayreuth, Germany. A ‘square grand’ made in the late 1800’s. These are difficult to tune as the tuning pins are at the back of the piano and you have to reach over the piano to tune them. Typical player piano, extra care is taken to work around the player mechanism. The occasional helper to keep me company while I tune. My own cat Forrest, as I tune my Yamama G1
