What Is A Pitch Raise?

Your instrument’s overall pitch fluctuates with seasonal humidity changes. Contraction and expansion of pivotal wood components adds and releases pressure on the strings, making their pitch move up and down respectively. In Canada especially, cold and dry weather drops pitch flat, while warmer, humid conditions lift it sharp. On top of that, every subsequent year without standard tuning drops a piano’s pitch flatter than the previous year. In response, our A440Hz Restoration Tuning tempers all strings to concert pitch so they sound as fresh as a newly tuned piano — even if the piano has not been tuned for over 10 years! As such, this service becomes a common necessity to keep heirloom pianos sounding their best.

Why Does A Piano Need To Be Tuned To Concert Pitch / A440Hz?

Pianos are designed to be tuned to A440Hz, like orchestras and chamber musicians, and to sing with the most desirable inharmonicity. Tuning a piano to any pitch level lower than concert pitch will subtly alter many aspects of the piano’s tonal signature. Strings that don’t exert enough down- and side-bearing through a bridge sound dull since their harmonics cannot fully resonate across the soundboard. Flat strings will even appear out of tune earlier, even if their pitch is “correct”. As such, modern piano stringing is engineered at optimal high-tension to ensure the utmost tuning stability, clarity and dynamism.

Is This Just A “Double Tuning”?

Restoring your piano’s pitch is not simply tuning your piano twice. Extra time is spent at the beginning of the appointment to measure inharmonicity and adjust string tension across the board. Often, this must be performed multiple times before it is stable for a fine-tuning. Doing so allows all forces to equalize during the fine-tuning that follows. In total, this service coupled with a standard tuning takes no more than 2 hours. The result is a full restoration of tone and stability for a neglected piano’s tuning.

Is It Possible For Strings To Break?

Music wire can break at any time during any activity. Ask any string musician, it happens to them far more often than a pianist. However, this is very unlikely in newer and well-maintained pianos. String breakage has 2 causes: quality of manufacture and compromised string bearing points. Tension adds strain on these points and when raising the pitch there is considerable extra tension. The corroded string catches and over-stretches — SNAP! Understandably, we replace broken strings at cost. However, string breakage is an unpredictable event that we aim to avoid and mitigate at all costs. As such, we are not responsible for compromised strings. It is our mandate to provide professional service and proactively avoid damaging your piano with extra caution while raising the pitch.

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