Piano Video Lesson: Do you Need to Tune Your Piano After Moving It?

Hi. This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com and VirtualSheetMusic.com with a question which is, do you have to tune a piano when it's moved? This is a question you get all the time and the conventional wisdom is, yes, you absolutely have to tune a piano when it's moved. In fact, some people believe that even if you move the piano a few feet across a room, you're going to need to tune it. But you know what? Pianos are much more robust than that. What about when you move it across town or across the country? Well, across the country, particularly if the piano is not in a climate control truck, you probably will have to tune the piano.

But what about moving it across town or in a climate control truck? Well, you always hear people just assume that you have to tune the piano when it's moved and there's some truth to this, but not for the reasons you may be thinking. After all, many pianos that we have right here were built before the advent of the car or trucks. They had to be delivered by horse and buggy, vintage Steinway's and Mason and Hamlin's were made in the turn of the century. So the cushion ride of a modern truck with a cushion suspension really does not shake the piano out of tune. So after it's moved and set up in the home, it may sound just like it did when it left the store or left the other home that it came from. But the change of environment will affect the tuning of your piano.

So my suggestion is, let the piano get acclimated to the new environment and it still may sound fine, but you really should tune it after a few weeks or a couple of months. Why? Because the whole pitch of the piano could shift down or even up and you might not notice it because it might actually shift in tune with itself. But it's imperative that you keep the piano stable at A440, that the pitch remains the same. Why? Because when a piano loses pitch, it takes several tunings to get stable again.

So my suggestion is, if you move your piano any great distance, give it a least a couple of weeks and then try it. You can download tuning applications on your phone and check the pitch, make sure it's stable. And I suggest this, by the way, on a regular basis. Every few months, check the pitch of your piano even if it sounds fine. If you find that the pitch has gone down or even up any appreciable amount, get it tuned because the more you tune your piano, the more stable it becomes over time. You want to get ahead of the curve in the tuning of your piano. Thanks for the great viewer questions. And again, I'm Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com and VirtualSheetmusic.com.

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