In addition to “tuning” what piano adjustments are checked for “complete piano service”?
Response: Although beginners may not use all the capabilities of a piano, as skills develop and advance a pianist learns to control many aspects of a piano’s musical potential. These include:
- Being able to develop musical skills to play expressively (loud and soft playing, playing with sustain, or staccato, repeating keys with predictable control within the limits of the action of the piano; managing key release techniques to control individual key sustain.
- Use the damper (also called the sustain) pedal to develop techniques for staccato playing (no pedal); legato pedaling (sufficient pedal down movement to engage all the dampers); half pedal (to partially engage the dampers to cause partial sustain … requires precisely adjusted dampers to accurately accomplish this more advanced technique.)
- Achieving a musical performance with “tone quality” that enhances the pianist’s skill in being able to achieve similar sound qualities from all the keys. An accomplished pianist may be able to adjust their technique so the left hand plays at a different volume level than the right to make an unbalanced instrument sound better.
- Regulation of the action and voicing of the hammers are are some of the adjustments done along with tuning that help in adjusting all 88 keys and the pedals of a piano to achieve best control of the musical qualities of a piano and aid in refining and advancing in the musical skills to accomplish this.
- Doing all possible adjustments to a piano that is very out of adjustment is a lengthy procedure, but usually regularly serviced quality instruments do not experience dramatic changes. It’s more common that a piano being used regularly is influenced by the local environment and the stresses from being played.
- A “complete piano service” visit includes more time than that needed to only tune a piano. Additional time is spent to inspect adjustments and in consultation with the pianist refine those that may have changed. That sometimes includes addressing increased friction in the keyboard to improve technical control for the pianist; and hammer voicing to better balance the tone quality in the various sections of a piano, or address a “harsher” tone quality developing because of string marks in the hammer felt, which happens gradually with playing the piano regularly.