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Learn the art of piano tuning with this comprehensive guide. Discover the step-by-step process to safely open the piano, identify the strings, and use essential gear for accurate tuning. Master the skills needed to maintain a harmonious and delightful musical experience with your piano.
- There Is A Fascinating (To Some) Paradox in Piano Tuning.
- So, What’s The Problem?
- Tempering
- Equal Temperament Spreads The Error Evenly Over All Twelve Notes.
- The Problem with Pianos: Inharmonicity
- What A Piano Tuner Listens to
- Electronic Tuning Devices – Edt’S
To be perceived as being “in tune” a piano must be tuned precisely “out of tune”. In other words, intervals that one would assume to be “pure” such as the octave and perfect fifth, are in fact not pure by a very small and specific amount. To see why this is, we have to explore the worlds of equal temperament, inharmonicity and piano tuning.
The Temperamental Comma
As musical history progressed, the particular oddity of the harmonic sequence began to show its ugly head. If you keep multiplying the original frequency in a series (2,3,4,5…) the resulting pitches vary slightly from a perfect multiple of the original. This is a phenomenon of mathematics because the multiples in an infinite series diverge slightly. The further up you go in the harmonic series, the greater the notes diverge from their lower cousins. Even though this divergence was known in th...
Think about this for a minute.
An oddity in mathematics shows up in real life in that you can’t tune a piano using what would otherwise seem to be a simple mathematical formula: consecutive Perfect 5ths. You should be able to stack Perfect 5ths on each other and come out, 12 notes later, in the same place….but you don’t. As Evelyn Lamb writes in Scientific American in a post titled “The Saddest Thing I Know About Integers”: Also notice the lovely piano in the photo. One solution is to tune an instrument so that the octaves...
Tempering a scale is the process of slightly adjusting each pitch out of its mathematical frequency so that all the resulting pitches fit within in octave. There are many different ways to temper a musical scale and many different temperaments have evolved. However, the 800lb gorilla in the room is Equal Temperament. Equal Temperament is the system...
This means each key signature has the same degree of dissonance and that there is no Wolf. You spread this error by making the fifth slightly narrower and the fourths slightly wider. This also means that in equal temperament, the resulting major thirds have a very pronounced beat to them that they did not have in the less equal temperaments. While ...
If tempering the fourths and fifths was all that was required to tune a piano properly in equal temperament, that would be enough of a challenge. But pianos, specifically the steel wire used in piano strings, present another set of problems. Inharmonicity is a physical problem that results in a mathematical one. Because the wire in a piano is made ...
A piano tuner listens to particular harmonics of a pitch rather than the fundamental pitch. These are also called overtones or partials. A tuner will listen for beats coming from coincident partials of two fundamental pitches and will tune the note to the reference pitch so that one or more of these coincident partials are in tune. Here is the catc...
Learning to tune by ear is hard and takes a sustained effort over a long time. Even then there is great variability in the end results as some tuners are more careful and conscientious and skilled at getting the strings tuned to their optimal point for a given piano. Electronic tuning devices have been around for decades but were only used for sing...
Apr 11, 2024 · Step-by-step piano tuning guide. Advanced tuning techniques. Utilizing technology in piano tuning. Maintaining your piano post-tuning. The harmony of precision and skill. Piano tuning is an art that marries precision with passion, a skill that transforms the mere striking of keys into a harmonious cascade of sound.
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Jul 27, 2023 · In this article, we’re going to outline the processes and steps required for anyone interested in learning how to tune a piano. Pianos typically have 88 keys, and each one of these keys could have up to three strings, each of which must be perfectly tuned to unlock the magic of the instrument.
- Chris Corfield
Mar 13, 2023 · If you own an acoustic piano, it’s crucial to get it tuned by a professional to ensure it lives a long, happy, musical life. In this article, we will cover things such as how often you should tune your piano, tuning costs, finding a qualified tuner, what to expect during a tuning session, and tips on maintaining your piano between tunings.
5 days ago · This is an easy and friendly online guide to tune and repair pianos, one step at a time. In this tutorial you will learn the basic steps to tune the professional way, the standard procedure and the equipment and tools you will need. First of all, tuning a piano required some basic tools.
Piano tuning is the act of adjusting the tension of the strings of an acoustic piano so that the musical intervals between strings are in tune. The meaning of the term 'in tune', in the context of piano tuning, is not simply a particular fixed set of pitches.
