How Often Should Your Piano Be Tuned?

Most of this information was obtained directly from the websites of these companies.

According to the National Piano Foundation: Two or more times per year.

According to Larry Fine, who wrote the book on buying and caring for a piano: Four times a year is ideal. Twice a year will suffice. Where the piano is rarely played or not played at all, once a year at minimum. An out-of-tune piano can be painful to listen to. It can also be discouraging and distracting to a student.

According to the Piano Technicians Guild: Your piano is an investment in your future. It can bring you and your family a lifetime of music, adding immeasurable joy and beauty to your home. Because it also is such a large investment, it should be maintained with the utmost care. Regular servicing by a qualified tuner-technicians will preserve your instrument and help you avoid costly repair in the future.

According to Most Piano Salespeople: Once a year.

According to Most Piano Manufacturers: At least twice a year, up to once a month

According to Baldwin: Four times the first year. After the first year a piano should be tuned at least twice each year. If the environment has not been kept as uniform as possible, a piano may need frequent tuning.

According to Steinway: We recommend that your technician be called at least three or four times a year. You, however, are the final judge and should have the piano tuned more often if you think necessary. To put the matter of tuning into perspective, remember that a concert piano is tuned before every performance, and a piano in a professional recording studio, where it is in constant use, is tuned three or four times each week as a matter of course.

According to Young Chang: We recommend that you have a registered technician tune your piano four times in the first year of its life, at 2, 4, 7 and 11 months. In general, after the first year we recommend two tunings per year. However, your piano should be tuned as needed, depending on your environment. A piano functions best under consistent conditions which are neither too wet or dry, optimally at a temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit and 42 percent relative humidity. According to the Piano Technicians Guild, variations in the relative humidity of a studio or home are generally the most important criteria in determining how often a piano needs to be tuned.

Who should tune it? Tuning is an art practiced by skilled professionals and under no circumstances should anyone other than a professional be allowed to tune your piano. Call a skilled qualified specialist such as a Piano Technicians Guild Registered Piano Technician (RPT). Take a look in the Yellow Pages.

Please have your piano tuned before your child starts practicing. With all of the other distractions and reasons children quit piano, we don’t want the lack of a good tuning to be the reason. Practicing on an out of tune piano is like practicing soccer with a half deflated soccer ball. It isn't any fun. Also, the Music Tutor will not sound very good with an out of tune piano.

One of the advantages of a Roland Digital Piano is that it never needs tuning. More importantly than this, however, is that it is always in tune. At an average cost of $125 per tuning, and assuming you tune the piano at the recommended two times per year, you will spend about $250 per year. With inflation factored in you will spend $7445 over a twenty year period. If you go against the piano tuners and manufacturer's recommendations and only tune it once a year you will spend $3722 over a 20 year period. In only seven years you will spend $2000 which is about the price of a high quality Roland Digital Piano HP201. Another major point to make here...if you will deposit the money you save in tunings into a savings account earning 3% you would have $9497 in 20 years.