Piano Tuning and Repair
Based out of Carbondale, Colorado, A Fine Tune
is a family owned business. It is our mission to
bring professionalism and accuracy to piano tuning and
repair in the Roaring Fork and Vail Valleys.
Regardless of the brand and quality of the piano,
they all need proper maintenance and tuning.
Changing temperatures and humidity impact the wooden
frame, sound board and bridges. Even if you could
control perfectly the environmental influences on your
piano, over time the steel "strings" of the piano
stretch and relax. This "loosening" of the strings
gradually lowers the pitch of the piano and creates a
disharmonious noise called "beats" as the strings of a
unison vibrate at different rates.
The art of tuning a piano traditionally required an
ear that is trained to hear these beats and tune them
out of each note on the piano. Additionally the
tuner memorizes a series of "intervals", or piano notes,
that need to be brought into harmony with each other by
again tuning out the beats. Finally, the piano
tuner has to bring the piano to the proper "pitch" by
using a tuning fork to tune middle C. When middle
C has been tuned to the fork, and the temperament is set
properly, A will vibrate at 440 cycles per second (440
cps has been set as the international standard).
Much of the guesswork and art has been rendered
unnecessary with the invention of electronic devices
that can accurately measure the cycles per second of any
note struck. Using an electronic tuning machine
(sometimes called a Strobe Tuner) saves time and
improves the accuracy of the tuning job performed.
For maximum performance and enjoyment of your piano,
we recommend you get it tuned twice a year. Spring
and fall are ideal, as these seasons coincide with the
two events that arguably have the greatest impact on
your piano - the heat coming on in the home, and
then the heat going off (and possibly a cooling system
starting up.)
If your piano has not been tuned in some time, it may
take a couple or even several tunings before it is
brought up to pitch. The process of bringing your
piano up to pitch is called "stretch tuning" and
involves stretching the steel piano strings up to pitch
(or a little higher with the expectation they will then
relax a bit in response to this stretching). The
more stretching needed, the more relaxing or flattening
of the pitch will take place. A follow up tuning
is recommended a couple weeks later to "fine tune" your
piano and adjust for this relaxing of the piano strings.
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