Piano Tuning in Houston and San Antonio

Fort Bend Music Center provides professional and affordable piano tuning services, and our team of tuners are experts in this specialized skill. With experience tuning pianos for a variety of settings including homes, concert halls, and churches, we truly understand the significance of caring properly for your valuable investment.

• Available 7 days a week
• Fully insured piano technicians
• Full time, experienced piano tuners
• Competitive rates

If it has been a while since your piano was last tuned, we highly recommend booking a knowledgeable tuner to get your piano back into proper pitch. Neglecting regular tuning can cause significant damage to your piano, so it’s worth getting it tuned even if you don’t play it every day.

How Often Should I Tune My Piano?

How often you should tune your piano can vary significantly based on how often you play, the age of your piano, its environment, and its purpose.

• Regular Use: If you are taking piano lessons and practice regularly, it’s a good idea to consider tuning it every 6 months. This helps maintain excellent sound quality and ensures your instrument stays in top condition.
• Occasional Use: For pianos played a couple times a week, an annual tuning should suffice. However, depending on other factors such as weather and humidity, it may be necessary to tune it more frequently.
• Infrequent Use: If your piano is rarely used, maybe just a few times a year, you could hypothetically tune it every two years. However, keep in mind that long periods without tuning could potentially lead to more serious maintenance issues, so annual tuning is still recommended.
• Concert Use: Pianos used for concerts or professional recordings should be tuned frequently. In some cases, they are even tuned before each rehearsal and performance to ensure the best possible sound quality.
• New Piano: New pianos should be tuned up to four times in the first year. This is because new strings tend to stretch and go out of tune more quickly.
• Neglected Piano: A neglected piano that is being put back into use must be brought to pitch gradually and then repeatedly. This could mean regular tunings for several weeks to stabilize the strings.
• Transportation: If you’re planning to move your piano from one location to another, it’s important to have it tuned after the move. The change in environment can cause the strings and soundboard to shift, affecting the overall sound of the instrument.
• Change in Seasons: Changes in humidity and temperature can cause the piano to go out of tune. You may want to consider tuning your piano in both winter and summer due to the wide fluctuation of temperature we experience in the Houston area.

Tuning Pianos to Concert Pitch

A piano is a stringed instrument. The strings are made of steel and are under considerable tension. Most pianos have about 200 to 235 strings and each string exerts about 165 pounds of tension. This translates to about 18 tons of string tension throughout an average size piano. The strings are wound around tuning pins that are driven into the pin block. When a tuner tunes a piano, he increases the tension on the strings by gradually turning the tuning pin tighter.

Ideally, pianos should be tuned to concert pitch or A440. This means that A above middle C on the keyboard should vibrate at 440 cycles per second. Tuning a piano is a delicate and precise process, requiring both skill and patience. It involves adjusting the tension of each string until it produces the desired pitch when struck with a hammer.

Expert Piano Tuning Services from Fort Bend Music Center

With a team of highly skilled technicians, we cater to the needs of pianos of all types and brands, from time-honored grand pianos to modern digital ones. Regular tuning by our experts not only enhances the tonal clarity of your piano but also prolongs its life, keeping your instrument in top-notch condition. Schedule piano tuning services with us today.