When I meet with first-time piano owners, I am often asked how often their piano should be tuned. In my experience, new pianos should be tuned every 3-9 months for the first 2-4 years. This allows the steel strings to “set” as they are stretched under large amounts of pressure (approximately 25-30 tons) for the first time. Many people are familiar with putting new strings on a guitar, tuning it, and then strumming it when it goes out of tune almost immediately. Although a piano is typically tuned many times (in the factory, on the showroom floor, and upon delivery…sometimes many times each adjustment), the strings will still need time to adjust to the proper tension. . It will usually take a couple of years before a tune-up “lasts” a while.

During this adaptation period, the piano also has a chance to get used to the climate in which it will be staying for some time. It’s amazing how small changes in temperature and/or humidity can affect tuning. You can have humidifiers or dehumidifiers installed on your piano to keep everything at a constant humidity level.

Pianos that are more than 4 years old tend to hold their tunings better. So having a piano tuned every 9 months to a year is not that uncommon for casual use.

In situations where the piano is used many hours a day, such as in a music school, you will find that it may need to be tuned every 1 to 3 months. This can be quite expensive, but it is necessary to keep the piano in “good health”.

Pianos are usually tuned to the concert pitch of the A440. If a piano is allowed to drop too low in pitch, it may be necessary to do what is known as “pitch raising” to bring it back into the A440. This can cause serious damage to the soundboard if left too long. Make sure your piano tuner knows how to do a pitch boost correctly…because done wrong, it’s like having a cracked slab as a foundation on which to build a house.