What Actually Happens During a Piano Tuning Appointment

If you've never watched a piano being tuned, the appointment is a bit of a black box: a stranger arrives, opens your piano, plays the same notes hundreds of times for an hour and a half, and leaves it transformed. Here's the full walkthrough — what each stage is, what we're listening for, and what the strange noises mean — so the black box becomes, at minimum, a well-lit box. (Clients who want the live version are always welcome to pull up a chair and ask questions; it's your piano and honestly, we like the company.)

Arrival and the opening assessment (first 10 minutes)

Before a single pin turns, the technician plays through the piano and measures where it sits against A440 — the international pitch standard the whole instrument is anchored to. This opening check answers the questions that shape the visit: How far has the piano drifted? Any notes misbehaving — sticking, buzzing, sounding dead? Anything about the pins, strings, or action that needs a conversation?

This is also when you'd hear about anything beyond a standard tuning — before the work, never as an invoice surprise. The most common example: a piano that's gone years untuned has usually sagged too far to correct in one pass, and needs a pitch raise — a two-stage visit. You'll get the plain-English version and the price, and then we proceed.

Then the piano opens up: lid, and on an upright usually the front panels, exposing the strings and action. (Children find this the best part. Fair enough — it is.)

Setting the temperament (the foundation)

Tuning doesn't start at one end of the keyboard and march to the other. It starts in the middle, with an octave-and-a-bit called the temperament — the reference section from which every other note will be measured. The technician tunes these notes in careful relationship to each other, checking interval after interval, because any error here would be copied 70 more times across the instrument. This is the most exacting stretch of the visit, and to a listener it's also the least musical: single notes and bare intervals, repeated, nudged, repeated. That repetition is the work — each strike tests whether the pin and string are truly settled or just visiting.

Two tools you'll see: the tuning lever on the pins, and mutes — felt or rubber wedges silencing the strings we're not tuning. Most notes on your piano have two or three strings, and they can only be matched by hearing them one at a time.

Working outward: unisons, octaves, and the strange middle period

From the temperament, the tuning expands outward — up through the treble, down through the bass, octave by octave, each new note checked against the settled ones. The signature skill here is unisons: bringing each note's two or three strings into exact agreement. Not close — exact. Two strings a hair apart create a slow, sour shimmer; tuned by ear, the technician listens for the beating between them and adjusts until it stops. Clean unisons are the difference between a piano that sounds tuned and one that sounds right.

A heads-up about the middle hour: the piano sounds genuinely odd during this stage — half-tuned, with corrected and uncorrected regions living side by side. Every tuner has met the worried look from the doorway. It resolves; the strange period is the process, not the result.

You'll also hear some non-musical sounds: firm test blows (loud, deliberate — a tuning must survive real playing, so we play realistically), and small adjustments if a minor issue like a sticking key turned up in the assessment — little fixes are typically handled on the spot as part of the visit.

The final check and the reveal (last 10 minutes)

With every string set, the technician plays music at last — chords, octaves, runs across the full keyboard — listening for anything the note-by-note work missed, touching up the few strings that settled slightly as their neighbours changed. The panels go back on, and then the best moment of the visit: you play it. Expect the whole thing to run about 90 minutes for a standard tuning (here's where the time goes), longer with a pitch raise.

After we leave: play immediately and often — playing helps a fresh tuning settle in. And our 30-day guarantee means if anything sounds off once you've lived with it, we come back free.

Common questions

Should I stay in the room during the tuning?
Entirely up to you. You're welcome to watch and ask questions, and equally welcome to get on with your day — most clients do a bit of both. The only real request is reasonable quiet: tuning by ear means listening for very small things.

Why does the tuner hit the keys so hard?
Those firm test blows verify the tuning is stable, not just momentarily correct. A string tuned gently can slip the first time someone plays fortissimo — better it slips under our hammer than during your recital piece.

Do I need to do anything to prepare?
Clear access to the piano (lid and panels), reasonable quiet, decent light — that's the whole list. No need to clean inside; in fact, please don't. Booking takes a minute, and the piano does the rest.