I am wondering if it is possible to tune a piano without expensive tools if you have perfect pitch?

Question

Until now, my family has always called a professional to tune our piano, but this time I am considering saving costs if possible and tuning our piano myself. My question is, is it possible?

Thank you in advance; Peter

Answer 1

The apps, the tools and the basic knowledge of using it is no big deal. However, tuning a piano correctly is not as straight forward as you might think. A piano is usually tuned to a modified version of a system called equal temperament and the hard part is understanding and getting things equally and evenly spaced out pitch-wise so that the whole instrument sounds in tune when you're finished - not at all an easy task.



Most people I know who have tried have ended up using a lot (and I mean a LOT or time) before finally calling a pro to have it done.



Even an experience piano tuner will use a long time tuning a piano and there is a reason it is not cheap. By all means, go ahead and give it a shot, just don't fool yourself into thinking it is easy... I have tuned quite a few pianos in my time and learned the skill by a professional - doing it right is not at all easy.



You can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_tuning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament

Answer 2

What matters when tuning piano is not how much the tools cost but the level of knowledge and experience of the person using them. Having perfect pitch might actually be a disadvantage, especially if the instrument that you are tuning isn't at exactly the same reference pitch as your "perfect pitch" thinks that it should be.

What matters at the end of the day is whether the piano *sounds* as if it is in tune and it may surprise you to learn that getting it to *sound* in tune will actually require that you deviate a little from the theoretically "correct" tuning and "stretch" the upper octaves slightly. Doing this correctly takes practice and experience.

Answer 3

Possible? Of course. Pianos were tuned for a couple of hundred years before anyone came up with electronic gizmos. Many proficient pianists touch up the tuning of their instruments. The tools of the traditional piano tuner are not expensive; basically a wrench and a couple of wedges used to isolate individual strings. Much more important is the knowledge to use the tools correctly. A quick search will get you the tools. This is not be confused with repairing a piano which takes a lot more.

Answer 4

No, it is NOT possible. To tune a piano properly takes years of training and practice and having 'perfect pitch' won't help you tune to equal temperament so all keys and all octaves sound in tune. By all means try doing yourself, but I almost guarantee the end results will be a disaster.

Answer 5

Adding on what Tim said, I'd like to say there are a lot of apps available that help you tune instruments, the same way the professional does (by indicating how sharp or flat the played frequency is, from it's closest note)