Piano Tuning

I felt so guilty about not looking after our piano properly for so long - it costs a bit of money to keep a piano maintained especially if you are teaching on it every day, have two children practising it every day, not to mention your own practise.

I had been meaning to get my piano tuned for years but didn't quite have the cash flow to justify it (silly, I know).

I had the number of a brilliant piano tuner, had the cash in hand to do it in December/January but couldn't get hold of him.

Finally in February after some Google searching and other enquiries, I found out that he passed away.  Such a shame - I didn't have the privilege of meeting him.  I did look up the Australasian Piano Tuners and Technicians Association (http://www.aptta.org.au/) and found the name of a local guy who was accredited with them.

I am happy to say that he did a brilliant job, and my piano is back in working order (still a practice pedal to be tightened up but that wasn't part of tuning).

I didn't realise just how much having an out of tune piano was messing with my sense of pitch.  The piano wasn't sounding honky tonky, but it certainly wasn't in tune.  I found it was harder to play in tune on my violin - not a good thing when you're a violin teacher.  It is so much easier now.  What a difference!  When you're playing the violin, the finger being 1 millimetre out can make a big difference.

It was $190 for about an hour of tuning.  Standard price for members of the APTTA.  I was happy to pay that.

Just in case you were wondering what the inside of a piano looks like, here you go:

Something else I found out: Piano Tuners mark carefully the inside of the piano when they tune it so the next tuner knows how long it has been since the last tune-up.  This one was tuned in Tamworth last!  How about that!! Apparently they mark it in chalk, so it can be wiped off easily and not do any damage.