How often should my piano be tuned?

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Ideal piano care requires that you have your piano tuned every 6 months. The temperature and humidity fluctuations have an effect on your piano whether you can hear it or not.  The wood and steel components that make up your piano are subject to constant shrinking and swelling at different times of the year.  To ensure that your piano stays close to standard pitch, it is important to have tunings done regularly.  

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Does my piano still need to be tuned even if no one plays it?

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Weather will have an adverse affect on your piano whether it is played or not.  It may hold its tuning for longer periods of time if it is never played, but the environment will still cause changes to occur which will affect the tuning and the sound. 

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I was told that my piano needs a Pitch Raise. What is that?

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A Pitch Raise (or Pitch Adjustment as I like to call it) is necessary when your piano goes too far away from standard pitch to hold with just one tuning.  A piano can be fine-tuned once it is within about 5% of standard pitch. If the pitch is significantly higher or lower than it should be, the pitch adjustment is required before your piano will hold a fine tune.  If your piano has been sitting sharp for too long, then it will want to "bounce back" to where it was. The same is true if it has gone too flat.  When it is pulled back up to pitch, it will pull back flat again a certain amount.  The Pitch adjustment is a complete tuning done quickly to set each wire closer to standard pitch.  Once the pitch has been re-set, the piano is ready to hold the fine tuning.

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How can I tell if my piano is out of tune?

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This can be a difficult question.  If you have your piano tuned regularly, you will learn to hear when it no longer sounds like it is in tune.  You may be able to tell the difference when you play a piano that has just been tuned, and then play a piano that needs to be tuned.  However, a piano that is in good shape may go out of tune uniformly.  What that means is that the whole piano will drift either flat or sharp together.  If you do not play your piano with other instruments so as to compare the pitches, you may not realize that your piano has gone out of tune.  If you have a smart phone with an app that will generate the A440 pitch, you could compare the A4 on your piano to a trustworthy pitch, but even this may prove challenging as 2/3 of your piano has 3 wires per note and if they are not all in phase with each other, the comparison may not generate a clear answer for you.  Regular tunings will avoid the stress of trying to determine if your piano has gone off pitch.