Perfect Pitch Piano Service

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Piano Tuning, Regulating and Repair

Serving NYC, Westchester, Most of NJ and Bucks County, PA

Is It Time To Tune Your Piano?

How often should my piano be serviced?

Normally, a piano requires two tunings a year. While pianos generally fall into vertical and grand model categories, each manufacturer selects its own materials and utilizes its own unique scale and furniture designs. Every piano requires a different level of maintenance, depending upon the quality of materials used and the design and level of craftsmanship. Here is what some of the better known piano manufacturers have to say:

Baldwin Piano Company (also Chickering, Wurlitzer)

Professional service is the key. In the first year, the National Piano Manufacturers Association recommends that you have your piano tuned four times. This is a period of environmental adjustment for a new instrument, and proper attention is important.

After the first year, the piano should be tuned at least twice each year, depending upon the frequency of use and atmospheric conditions.

Kawai Piano Company

Quality pianos demand quality care. Fine pianos require regular maintenance in three areas: tuning, action regulation and voicing. Tuning is usually required more often than the other service areas, but all three should be a part of any fine piano's maintenance.

Due to string stretching, settling, and the effects of climate, a new piano should receive at least four tunings in the first year. After that, the type of use and the location of the piano will dictate the number of tunings required, but Kawai recommends two tunings per year as a minimum.

Pearl River

Changes in temperature and humidity, the amount and type of use it gets, and the musical requirements of the owner will determine how often your Pearl River piano will need service.

In general, Pearl River recommends that your new piano be serviced four times the first year and twice a year by a qualified piano technician.

Samick (also Knabe, Kohler & Campbell, Conover Cable, Bechstein & Sohmer)

The careful selection and installation of the highest quality tuning pins, string, and pinblock materials assures excellent stability. Regular service by a qualified technician will assure the continuing pleasure that comes only from a properly tuned and regulated piano.

We recommend two to three tunings the first year and a minimum of two tunings per year thereafter. Avoid placing your piano where it will be exposed to extreme heat or cold, moisture, or direct sunlight, all of which can cause unstable tuning, warpage, and finish damage.

Schimmel

Your Schimmel piano should be tuned and serviced only by qualified professionals. Questions regarding tuning can best be answered by your local piano technician.

As a rule, a brand new piano should, depending on its location and climatic conditions, be tuned two to three times in the first year or two. An instrument played often and intensively could require additional tunings.

Steinway & Sons (also Boston & Essex)

Your Steinway piano was tuned many times before it left our factory. It was tuned to and should be maintained at A440 pitch. This is the internationally accepted standard and the standard for which all Steinway pianos are engineered.

Unfortunately, no matter how expertly a piano is tuned, atmospheric variations and the nature of the piano's construction constantly conspire to bring it off pitch.

Your Steinway has been designed and built so that in normal use and under normal conditions it should need only periodic tuning. 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 as often as 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.

Tuning is an art practiced by skilled professionals and under no circumstances should anyone other than a professional be allowed to tune your Steinway piano.

Yamaha Pianos

New pianos should be tuned a minimum of four times the first year to compensate for the normal settling that takes place. Subsequently, as a matter of standard maintenance, a piano should be tuned at least twice a year.

Of course, some musicians will choose to have their own piano tuned more often to satisfy their own personal musical requirements.

Young Chang America, Inc.(also Pramberger & Bergmann)

Piano owners will receive optimum performance from their piano if it is properly serviced during its lifetime to compensate for the effects of environmental conditions and use.

Due to the natural elasticity in new piano strings, we recommend that your instrument be tuned two to four times the first year, twice the second year and a minimum of once per year thereafter. Of course, you may choose to have your piano tuned more or less often to satisfy your own personal requirements.

For Sale

1916 Steinway Model "O". Completely restored inside and out. Brass plaque on side reads "Donated to Princeton University by the Class of 1936 in Honor of Cornelius and Wea Bliss"

Who Was Cornelius Bliss?

Cornelius N. Bliss

"Cornelius Newton Bliss, though one of the big merchants of New York, was best known to the public as Treasurer of the Republican National Committee, an office he held for many years, during which he raised several large campaign funds, chiefly from the protected interests. He was President of the American Protective Tariff League, which he was instrumental in founding." He became Treasurer of the RNC in 1892. In 1906, in support of President Roosevelt, he raised the $260,000 Harriman fund, whose contributors included H. McK. Twombly, Chauncey M. Depew, James Hazen Hyde, the Equitable Life Assurance Society, George W. Perkins, H.H. Rogers, John D. Archbold, William Rockefeller, James Speyer, and himself. He was Secretary of the Interior in the McKinley administration. He was born at Fall River, Mass. in 1833. (Cornelius N. Bliss, Merchant, Is Dead. New York Times, Oct. 10, 1911.) His partner in the wholesale dry goods firm of Bliss, Fabyan & Co., George F. Fabyan, endowed the Fabyan professorship in the Harvard Medical School. (Death List of a Day. New York Times, Jan. 19, 1907) - which was occupied by former Council for Tobacco Research Scientific Advisory Board member Peter M. Howley. Bliss's son, Cornelius N. Bliss Jr. replaced him as a trustee of the Central Trust and as chairman of Bliss, Fabyan & Co.

Click Here for the family history.

1996 Baldwin Model "R" Artist Grand with factory installed Baldwin Concertmaster Player (click here to go to the Gibson/Baldwin website for a description of this player system)

Tips on Buying A Piano