Friday, January 1, 2010

Piano Tuning Fee: Fine Tuning - Pitch Raising

For fine-tuning, my fee is $185 GST included. That price is for Vancouver, and North and West Vancouver. For Richmond and Burnaby my fee is $195. For outlying areas, the charge is more.

*I do not service Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, Surrey, Delta or New Westminster areas.*

Piano Tuning as described (in Wikipedia) is: "The act of making minute adjustments to the tensions of the strings of a piano to properly align the intervals between their tones so that the instrument is in tune."

Many (but not all) pianos that have been neglected for long periods of time require a pitch raise or lowering so that the piano is at A440.

If you do not understand what a pitch raise is, think of this analogy.
You need somebody to cut your lawn because you are having an outdoor party. The lawn cutter comes over and notices that the grass in your yard is 2 feet high! He immediately tells you that his service will take much longer because he will have to cut the lawn several times to get it down to the standard height. Naturally, the fee will be more expensive because the original time quoted, will be much longer.

You could probably find a lawn cutter who is less experienced at a smaller fee and who will simply cut the lawn just at the height it is, making only minor adjustments. The only problem is, the lawn height will not be appropriate for the party you expect to give.

It the lawn height is properly cut down to a normal level, the grass will be brown and very stressed because of the amount of work done on it. Similarly, pitch raising or lowering the wires on a piano is very stressful and it will take a period of time before the piano settles down. Almost certainly, after major pitch adjustments of this nature, pianos will require tuning again within a few weeks to several months. There's absolutely no way around it.

Fine-tuning (2 HOUR APPOINTMENTS that include minor adjustments and vacuuming UNDERNEATH KEYS), my fee is $170 GST included. That price is for Vancouver, North, and West Vancouver. For Richmond and Burnaby, the fee is $180.

Pitch raising or lowering IS INCLUDED, but you must understand that if your piano has not been tuned regularly, 2 times per year, every year, you should schedule another appointment in about 1-3 months. There is no way a piano can stay in tune after many years of neglect. When you attend a piano concert, you'll notice that the piano tuner comes on stage during intermission to make minor adjustments. So, if a piano goes slightly out of tune during the first part of a performance, imagine how far out of tune it will be in 6 months!

https://www.paulbrown.org  Email: paulbrn@telus.net 
Tel: 604-324-7013 (no texting)

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