If you’ve ever heard a piano note go “wah‑wah‑wah,” you’ve heard string beating. For piano tuners, it’s one of the most useful sounds: It tells you, instantly, whether two strings are truly matching or fighting each other. In this article I’ll explain what beating between strings is, why piano string beating is so obvious in … Read more
I recently had a customer ask me to tune their piano to A432, and had to quickly calculate how many cents flat relative to A440 to tune. This calculation isn’t especially complicated, but it’s inconvenient to do quickly in the field. I decided to create this simple tool for my own quick and easy reference. … Read more
Why do pianos need to be tuned? Pianos go out of tune as humidity changes. Piano tuning is the first step in good piano maintenance. Here in Maine (and New England in general), indoor humidity is highly unpredictable. Constant small fluctuations in humidity mean your piano can go out of tune even more quickly than … Read more