How to Find a Good Piano Tuner?

Answer 1

Piano tuning is a refined art that not everyone can do. A lot of people will try their hand at it, and perhaps make your old piano sound a bit better than it used to. However, it’s easy to spot a good professional piano tuner from an amateur one if you adhere to the following:

Step 1. Ask how much experience they have in tuning pianos. As the saying goes ‘practice makes perfect’, this is certainly true in the case of piano tuners. The more experience and practice they’ve had tuning hundreds of pianos, then the more likely they are to do a good job.

Step 2. Look at what equipment they bring along with them. Are they relying too much on electronic devices? A good professional tuner will rely mostly on their ear, with the occasional reliance on a tuning fork, for tuning the middle C.

Step 3. You will know if you have a good tuner, as they will be knowledgeable not just about pianos, but also about the physics of what they’re doing to a certain level. Most good tuners will exhibit a natural interest in things like wave properties and other related physics topics for their job.

Step 4. If you don’t want to be lumbered with an amateur piano tuner, it’s best to use someone who comes recommended from a trusted source and is a member of a registered body. Hiring an amateur or a so called ‘professional’ that does a quick job can result in your piano being badly damaged. A professional tuner will take their time and usually spend, depending on the job, about 2 hours tuning and repairing your piano.

Hiring a professional tuner has clear benefits over hiring someone who has just a few amateur piano tunes under their belt. Tuning a piano cannot be equated to being the same as tuning other instruments. A piano is much more complex, there are more moving parts, and 200 strings to tune! So don’t leave this job to amateurs, hire a professional.