damont | What do you do with a flat pi-a-no?

What do you do with a flat pi-a-no?

The piano in the choir room is badly out of tune: most of the keys are a bit flat, and the octave below middle C is just totally FUBAR (keys wildly out of tune with each other, et cetera ad nauseam, though the nauseam kicks in pretty damn fast).

Me: "Someday I'm going to have to do something about that piano."
Choir Director: "Why?"

blaisedec: "He has perfect pitch just like [another choir member] does."
Me: "I'm just not sure if the solution involves a tuning wrench or a 12-gauge."

The women did today's anthem, which was just as well since my voice wasn't up to it (allergies, gotta make sure I do the Claritin regularly). The men are doing a 19th century Russian piece next week.

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12 gauge....

Um...Don't shoot the poor piano. Sheesh!

Why do people act like it's a surprise when a device that runs on tuned strings NEEDS regular maintainance?

I once got 50% off the list price on a banjo (at a thrift store) because some strings were broken.

Anyway, all is not lost. Go to petty cash or take up a collection among your choirmembers or get a budget item approved to either call a professional tuner or, barring that, buy a tuning wrench and a decent chromatic tuner.

Yes, you CAN tune a piano decently yourself. No, DON'T worry about warping the soundboard or some such nonsense unless you're dealing with an antique.
Used Pianos can be bought for as little as...FREE TO A GOOD HOME.
Fact is, the piano SUCKS now, and for not alot of money it can very likely be fixed or at least made to suck a whole lot less. What have you got to lose?

The next comment has some "How to's" from a slightly experienced piano hack who's had a whole lot of experience with strings in general.

or, barring that, buy a tuning wrench and a decent chromatic tuner.

Yeah, a chromatic tuner would be nice. My initial thought on those lines was a mike and an oscilloscope, but I'm a former physics major.

Oscilloscope? Sigh. Geeks, you tried scrubbing, you've tried soaking.

But seriously, folks, this is a problem that has been very very solved.
Musicians have had excellent tuner technology for decades.

(I must confess that with my 12- 27 strings to tune for and during a gig that I've grown REALLY FOND of my tuners)

The Boss TU12H has a decent onboard mic, a plug for a better one, (if you want), a 7 OCTAVE SENSITIVITY RANGE, a calibration mode for non-standard tunings, and doubtlessly some other bells and whistles in the latest model and it can be had for ~$80 from almost any music store. I believe that either Seiko or Sanyo still make a model that's a little more expensive but has a wonderfully responsive meter that's really stable and easy to read, (about $50 more) For power/$, I *highly* recommend the Boss.
But even if your budget is REALLY bad...
There are cheaper models that will also work pretty good (but just might not be as sensitive to the extreme ranges) for as little as $15. My trusty little Korg (the $15 one) stays in my pocket, has never failed, and is (for a digital tuner) fast enough that I can watch my pitches as I sing. It might not finish this job, but it and a socket wrench set would get you started on massive improvement with about an hour's worth of work.

So be brave and stand up to your piano suckage. A massive improvement is yours with just a little time and minimal cash.

I was honestly thinking of the o-scope for simultaneous comparison of waveforms for two strings that are supposed to be tuned identically. But as I pointed out before, I'm a former physics major.

I do hope

blaisedec and/or

nostasia read all these comments, as it's their church... but thanks for the pointers, Maug, I appreciate 'em.

Once you've resolved your will to do this, gathered up your courage, and acquired the items you'll need to complete the quest:
1) a piano wrench (BTW, there *are* socket wrenches that work for this)
2) a decent chromatic tuner (Boss TU12H is good, and Korg makes some nice ones too)

Anyway, open it up, and do some detective work and find the worst strings and start there. Go slow, take some time. Don't do it all at once.

That, by the way, is the philosophy that best guarantees success:
Don't think you can or should do it all at once!!!!

Since most of your problem is flat notes, your work, if steady and patient should pay off nicely.

Patience.

Also , if you're using a chromatic tuner, bear in mind that most pianos are "fudged" tuning wise in certain places to compensate for some formants, wildly differing string lengths, and some other issues that interfere with seamless harmony because of the physics involved.
But I can tell you from personal experience that the minor funkiness that you will achieve from tuning to a chromatic tuner will be TRIVIAL compared to what you're dealing with now.

Now, as I said, you don't have to worry too much about warping the soundboard on a cheap piano, but changing strings is a pain, and if you do too much too fast, the soundboard will complain under the suddenly changed stresses, and that *does* result in string breakage, which is a whole ugly kettle of fish to either work around or fix, and for that you probably will need a pro. So with that caveat in mind, take your tuning wrench(es) and your tuner and just go and set a goal of "mild improvement" week to week. That way there's plenty of time for things to settle after each adjustment. For instance: The tuner shows a tendency for everything to be about a quarter tone flat, with some exceptionally bad sections? Attack the worst section first and give each or the strings on those keys enough of a tweak to make them half as bad as they were. Next week note if any keys have shifted due to your work (some may very well have gone sharp- take those down, and don't worry too much about getting them right- as a matter of fact fudge them slightly flat if you can), and, now-
Give every key that's off just a bit of a nudge (to maybe an average of 1/8th tone flat), and give those worst ones another once over.
The week after that, note again, if anyone went sharp and nudge them down.
Then give the entire piano the once over with a goal of more net improvement.
The week after that, nudge down the sharpies (if any) and start actually getting stuff into true temper. Depending on how bad things are (or aren't!!), you may even be able to accellerate this process down to two weeks, especially if you can visit the piano every couple of days. Think of it like braces on teeth- you slowly go and nudge everything towards where it's supposed to be. Focus on the trouble spots a little more intensly, but overall, after each movement and adjustment, let the piano rest and get used to the new tensions that are in place. Patience and Persistence are your prime virtues here.

Ta-da! A little bit of TLC and some gentle rehab and this poor neglected piano will be a well-behaved member of your family and not poop little dissonances into your choir.

What's more, you can save considerable "hourly rate" on a professional tuner if you can first massage the piano into "mostly in tune" and let him/her use their mojo to finish the job. Most of the huge cost of rehab on a badly out of tune piano is in fact of all the hours/days/weeks it takes to gently ease everything back to where it's supposed to be. Most botching of this process is due to a lack of patience/vs a really bad piano. So by going and giving it a weekly once over with the goal of steady, gentle improvements, no one has to go and suffer the indignity of a background check just so you can buy a 12 guage and waste a piano.

OTOH, if you or anyone you know ever DO decide to shoot a piano please let me know. I'd like to record it. You don't get chances like that but once in a lifetime.

There is one HUGE pitfall that you might not be able to avoid (next)

Oh, and one more warning. Somtimes steel strings get very used to being where they are. In fact, they will get kinked or bent at their resting points and when you go to tighten them, they will resist and then "pop" as they snap past the bent section. Don't panic too much if this happens here or there. As soon as it "pops", see where you landed tuning wise, and deal with it after it's had some rest. Chances are, it will "land" slightly sharp and then flatten as it settles. Sometimes you get lucky and it flattens into tune. If it does, say "Woohoo!"
The fact that most of your strings are currently flat is a good omen for this phenomenon, because you're taking that bent section and pulling it away from the "vibrating area". It's when these kinks are on strings that are sharp that you get a problem because the kink will wind up in the "vibrating area" and cause the string to have TWO vibrational lengths and that is a tuning nightmare. Ask me how I know.
It will be these kinks in the strings that will be the source of most of your string breakage, should any occur. Sometimes (but thankfully, only sometimes) the string will "pop" back and forth over this kink from too shap to too flat and never settle right. That string will need to be replaced.
If you can't replace it just yet:
If you encounter one, and it lands a wee bit flat, leave it there. You may be able, in time, to stretch the kink back out, and leaving the kink out of the "vibrating area" is what you want. One note slightly flat will cause a whole lot less pain than a sharp note with two vibrational frequencies.

Don't let this one pitfall scare you out of trying this. As I said, it doesn't always happen and it's not always a dealbreaker when it does. And remember, even if you find you can't completely rehab this instrument, I'll betcha a dollar you can score enough improvement to make the ear pain manageable.

But anyway, point is, that all is not lost, and that patience and persistence are extremely likely to get you most of a functional piano back.
And if patience and perstistence fail, sheer obsessive stubbornness is pretty likely to work in time- unless that is, you're dealing with a piano that can't be rehabbed at all. But short of that, this is something a patient layman can learn to do. Ask me how I know

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What do you do with a flat pi-a-no?

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The one nasty pitfall