Here at Rimmers Music, we sell new and second-hand acoustic pianos in 4 of our 9 branches. We also buy young second-hand pianos to sell again. And one of the questions we ask people who want to sell us a piano is when was it last tuned??? This often draws a selection of reasons why the piano hasn’t been tuned regularly. By regularly we mean at least twice a year if the instrument is played regularly or if no one is playing it once a year. This is very important for various reasons. Firstly having a piano tuned keeps the instrument “in good health” after all how many of us have a regular service on our car! And why? When a tuner tunes a piano he would slacken the string off firstly, turning the peg in an anti-clockwise direction, to keep the peg moving and slacken the string slightly, this keeps “elasticity” type movement in the string, which keeps the tone in the string, and then he would turn the peg clockwise to tune the string to pitch. Pianos that haven’t been tuned for some years, you will find that the bass strings have a “tubey” sound to them and no real melodic tone. Also, pianos that haven’t been tuned for some years cannot be tuned to pitch again, because the pitch has been allowed to slip over the years and the pins become very tight in the pin block and cannot be turned to tune the piano. Secondly, if you were buying a piano, you would want to know it is in good condition both externally and internally. Knowing it has been regularly tuned throughout its life, after all, if you were a singing pupil or a singing teacher you would need to have the piano tuned at the correct pitch for learning and teaching from. Also from a players point of view to know that your instrument will keep the tone that it has, for many years to come, after all that is probably why you bought that particular model. For more information on piano tuning, please give your local store a call and we will be happy to help you. Make sure your piano is tuned!