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Why Do Pianos Go Out of Tune?

Humidity changes

Stretched inside across the piano case is a thin sheet of wood called the soundboard. It pushes, by means of a bridge, against the piano strings. This connection transfers the string vibrations to the board to make the vibrations audible. The soundboard shrinks when the humidity in the air goes down, thus lessening its push against the strings. Lessening the push lowers the tension on the string, thus its pitch changes. The previously tuned pitch goes flat. If the humid- ity level rises, the soundboard swells, raising the pitch of the string. The more consistent the humidity around the piano, the more stable the tuning. Since the humidity is always changing, a piano can go out of tune without even playing it. Very high quality pianos have very sensitive, flexible and responsive soundboards. They can react to humidity changes as easily as cheaper, less flexible ones. A well-built, expensive instru- ment does not exempt it from humidity caused tuning instability.

New strings

A new piano with fresh strings or a recently replaced string on an older piano will go out of tune quickly. The string tension, set by the tuning, lessens as the steel stretches. New pianos and/or new strings need more frequent tuning for the first year until the stretch is minimized.

Pitch raises

When a piano has not been tuned in a while or has new strings, the tension of the strings drops considerably over time. As a lot of tension is added back onto the strings, the soundboard warps to a new curvature and this warping changes as the tuner adjusts the note pitches up and down the range of the keyboard. Thus the first tuning, a pitch raising, is rough. A fine tuning requires that no drastic shifts be made to the overall pitch level of the piano. Waiting too long between tunings puts a stress on the balance and the first fine tuning will not remain pure as long as future, regular tunings will.

Poor tuning

Tuning pins must be adjusted correctly. Proper pitch corrections involve minute turning move- ments of the pins with the avoidance of bending them. The tension changes must be equalized throughout the stringÕs entire length by solid blows to the keys. This is why a tuning takes time, and having experience with many different brands and designs of pianos is crucial to achieving a stable tuning.

Piano size

Small pianos have shorter strings, which shift in pitch proportionally more than a larger piano's longer strings, as their soundboards shrink and expand. So smaller pianos will go out of tune more severely and more quickly than larger ones.