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Sticky keys? Squeaky pedal? Sour notes? Allow me to fix those little annoyances so you can enjoy playing your piano again. Teaching or taking lessons? You inherited your Grandmother's piano? Do you have an impending performance? Let me get your piano ready for you to shine.
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Piano Tuning - Regulation - Repair - Cleaning - QRS Technologies
Akron - Canton - Wadsworth - Medina - Cleveland - Northeast Ohio
Akron - Canton - Wadsworth - Medina - Cleveland - Northeast Ohio
Thank you for visiting David's Fine Tuning & Piano Service, where it is our goal to help you enjoy your piano more. Your enjoyment flourishes when your piano is not only "in tune", but is also operating well mechanically (regulation), and produces a good tone quality (voicing).
Visit our Services page for details.
David is a Member of the Piano Technicians Guild (Cleveland Chapter) and is a Certified by Dampp-Chaser as a Piano Life-Saver installer. Ask about the QRS PNOmation 3.
Visit our Services page for details.
David is a Member of the Piano Technicians Guild (Cleveland Chapter) and is a Certified by Dampp-Chaser as a Piano Life-Saver installer. Ask about the QRS PNOmation 3.
So, You Got a FREE Piano!
Congratulations. You are now the proud owner of the “King of Instruments”.
It might sound a little out tune or like it came out of a honky-tonk. You may have just moved someone else’s dust into your home or something much more unseemly. Maybe a couple of keys are crooked or hard to press. Maybe the foot pedal makes noises. You know the piano market is depressed, you just got a “free” piano. What is it worth to put into this instrument?
Why do stores still sell used pianos? Because they have taken care of all of the problems mentioned above. By taking care of many pianos at a discount they can still make a small profit margin selling a console or spinet for seven or eight hundred dollars. That is essentially the difference between your “free” piano and a store bought used piano. I will sometimes “flip” pianos because I can do all of the work myself and compete with the store selection.
You have a “free” piano. You really cannot look at resale value except for as mentioned above, selling it as a “cared for and well maintained” piano. You are investing in the instrument for your own benefit, for the pleasure of playing on a well working instrument that makes musical sound. You are investing in your own life and the life of your family, a musical experience, not a marketable object.
Of course you will need to tune the piano, and most likely precede the tuning with a pitch raise, a rough tuning that over stretches the strings so that when they relax, they remain close to the correct pitch. This increases the stability of the tuning and will help it last longer.
Years of dust, and dirt, and foreign objects accumulate under the keys, in the action, and in the cabinet of the piano. Start fresh. A thorough internal cleaning is highly recommended.
There are approximately 5,000 parts to a piano. Most are never touched or even looked at during its lifetime. Hundreds of screws may have worked themselves loose over the years. While taking out the action to do an internal cleaning, all of the action screws should be tightened and all the parts examined for excessive wear or breakage.
Corrosion is an enemy of all things with an extended lifespan. Corroded parts should be cleaned and lubricated.
There are 6 major adjustments (other than tuning) that can be made for each note. This is called “regulation”. A poorly regulated piano with poorly aligned parts can cause excessive wear and make the instrument feel difficult to play.
Things to look for:
Over time, the hammer felt becomes compressed and hard. Often you can see grooves in the hammers where they come into contact with the strings. Very deep grooves can even mute the strings’ sound production. Usually hard hammers cause a loud, bright tone with a sharp articulation. The hammers can be reshaped and the felt can be worked with a needle to adjust the tone of the piano. This procedure is called voicing. Once done, many of these procedures will not need to be repeated for years, if ever again in the piano’s life time. Think of it like a car that not only missed it’s oil changes, but its 5,000 mile, 12,000 mile, and 25,000 mile maintenance work.
You have a “free” piano. What a great world we live in that we can have free pianos, I suppose. Now the investment is in the experience. I would suggest that it is worth investing in a half day or a day’s work from a professional craftsperson to create years of pleasurable music making experience, as opposed to having an instrument that is a chore to play and ends up just taking up space. Why did you take the piano in the first place?
Talk to your piano technician. They can give you an assessment of the piano’s condition, realistic expectations about what can be achieved with the instrument, and recommendations as to how to prioritize the service and maintenance of your instrument.
Be sure to read the article on how often you should tune your piano. Regular maintenance can extend the life of your pianos and help the piano to stay more in tune longer between tunings.
It might sound a little out tune or like it came out of a honky-tonk. You may have just moved someone else’s dust into your home or something much more unseemly. Maybe a couple of keys are crooked or hard to press. Maybe the foot pedal makes noises. You know the piano market is depressed, you just got a “free” piano. What is it worth to put into this instrument?
Why do stores still sell used pianos? Because they have taken care of all of the problems mentioned above. By taking care of many pianos at a discount they can still make a small profit margin selling a console or spinet for seven or eight hundred dollars. That is essentially the difference between your “free” piano and a store bought used piano. I will sometimes “flip” pianos because I can do all of the work myself and compete with the store selection.
You have a “free” piano. You really cannot look at resale value except for as mentioned above, selling it as a “cared for and well maintained” piano. You are investing in the instrument for your own benefit, for the pleasure of playing on a well working instrument that makes musical sound. You are investing in your own life and the life of your family, a musical experience, not a marketable object.
Of course you will need to tune the piano, and most likely precede the tuning with a pitch raise, a rough tuning that over stretches the strings so that when they relax, they remain close to the correct pitch. This increases the stability of the tuning and will help it last longer.
Years of dust, and dirt, and foreign objects accumulate under the keys, in the action, and in the cabinet of the piano. Start fresh. A thorough internal cleaning is highly recommended.
There are approximately 5,000 parts to a piano. Most are never touched or even looked at during its lifetime. Hundreds of screws may have worked themselves loose over the years. While taking out the action to do an internal cleaning, all of the action screws should be tightened and all the parts examined for excessive wear or breakage.
Corrosion is an enemy of all things with an extended lifespan. Corroded parts should be cleaned and lubricated.
There are 6 major adjustments (other than tuning) that can be made for each note. This is called “regulation”. A poorly regulated piano with poorly aligned parts can cause excessive wear and make the instrument feel difficult to play.
Things to look for:
- Are the keys level across the keyboard?
- Press a key slowly. Does is move freely for quite a bit before it feels like it engages the action?
- Is a key hard to press down or slow to return to normal?
- Do the keys wiggle back and forth a lot?
- Does the sustain pedal work correctly?
Over time, the hammer felt becomes compressed and hard. Often you can see grooves in the hammers where they come into contact with the strings. Very deep grooves can even mute the strings’ sound production. Usually hard hammers cause a loud, bright tone with a sharp articulation. The hammers can be reshaped and the felt can be worked with a needle to adjust the tone of the piano. This procedure is called voicing. Once done, many of these procedures will not need to be repeated for years, if ever again in the piano’s life time. Think of it like a car that not only missed it’s oil changes, but its 5,000 mile, 12,000 mile, and 25,000 mile maintenance work.
You have a “free” piano. What a great world we live in that we can have free pianos, I suppose. Now the investment is in the experience. I would suggest that it is worth investing in a half day or a day’s work from a professional craftsperson to create years of pleasurable music making experience, as opposed to having an instrument that is a chore to play and ends up just taking up space. Why did you take the piano in the first place?
Talk to your piano technician. They can give you an assessment of the piano’s condition, realistic expectations about what can be achieved with the instrument, and recommendations as to how to prioritize the service and maintenance of your instrument.
Be sure to read the article on how often you should tune your piano. Regular maintenance can extend the life of your pianos and help the piano to stay more in tune longer between tunings.