Two Old Uprights – which one to keep?   I went to a home recently that had two pianos; one to sell and one to keep. Only they didn’t know which one they wanted to fix, so they needed an evaluation to fill in the data.   The first one was a very old…

I am looking at a piano to buy – can you help?   Yes, there are many things to look at when purchasing a piano – or deciding whether to haul a ‘free’ one home.   I have quite a bit of information on my website about this, so I would first say check out…

I learned about a new tool at a great Piano Technicians Guild technical presentation last night! Finally two engineer/ piano technicians (and staff/spouses) developed a system that measures action inertia, and even quantifies ‘good’ and ‘bad’ playing pianos! I have often wondered how to quantify the touch and feel of a piano while playing. There…

Yesterday I saw an old Knabe, about100 years old, that had huge problems – and so much had been done to it. Today I saw an almost identical Knabe in great condition! The first one had been worked on extensively at some point in the last 50 years; many parts had been replaced, but not…

I had an amazing experience with a little Beagle dog while tuning yesterday! This little dog had such amazing tenacity that he whined, barked, and scratched for the whole hour and a half it took to tune the old upright! I’ve never had an animal or child be that persistent during a tuning! Usually the…

Much of a piano is made of wood, and is therefore extremely sensitive to fluctuations in humidity. The piano’s wooden soundboard is designed to have an arch, or crown. The crown increases or decreases with changes of humidity, changing the tension on the strings and throwing the instrument out of tune. Larger fluctuations in humidity…