Step-up Tuning Process

When getting ready to tune a piano, one thing a technician does not want to see is rust on the strings.

Piano strings are made of steel, and the base strings are wrapped in copper. They are designed to handle the pressure—around 10 to 20 tons—of being strung in a piano while still being able to stretch and adjust during a tuning.

However, this makeup also means they’re highly susceptible to rust if left in a moist environment. Once rusted, the strings become brittle and lose their ability to stretch. Usually, this means a restringing, if the piano is in good condition, but that can be expensive—up to $2,000, estimated.

That price may be reasonable for a high-value piano, but for older pianos with less monetary value, technicians will often recommend it be replaced. But what about those pianos with high sentimental value, but low monetary value? It isn’t reasonable to put in a $2,000 set of strings if the piano isn’t even worth half that, but suggesting replacing these sentimental pianos doesn’t seem right either. Is there a way to give them a second chance?

Jim Duckworth, owner and operator of Renaissance Piano Service, set out to find an answer to this question. With the help of a colleague at the Piano Technician’s Guild, he came up with the idea for the Step-up Tuning Process.

The goal of the step-up tuning process is to get the piano to a point where it will hold a tune and function well until the customer is in a position where restringing is a reasonable option for them. It requires a lot of patience, and isn’t for every piano—damage to other parts can make it difficult if not impossible to tune, and too many broken strings means the piano can’t play right—but Jim has already seen success using this technique. In this video, he discusses a particularly interesting case and the step-up process he uses to tune the piano.

This piano was inherited by a family and needed a lot of work. It was an early 1900s Kingston piano, had been painted dozens of different colors, and was bought by the customer’s father from a man selling pianos from the back of his truck. While the outside had received a new finish and looked beautiful, the inside still needed a lot of TLC. The strings were heavily rusted, and the notes sounded clunky and dull—the result of dust on the hammers and loose screws in the action.

Jim suggested they try the step-up process with this piano. This would mean he would bring the piano halfway to ‘in tune,’ which is A440 pitch. At this point, the notes would sound good against each other, meaning the piano was playable. Reaching a halfway point meant less stress on the strings, allowing them time to stretch and adjust to the new position. Each tune following, he’d bring it a little closer to A440. It was expected that strings would break, but replacing one or two is better than having to restring the whole piano.

Another unique aspect of the step-up tuning process is how the technician tunes each note. In a typical process, a technician will tune one string of each note, which is called ‘setting the pitch.’ Then, they will return to the two- and three-stringed notes—called the bicords and tricords—and adjust them to match the base pitch. However, this means the pressure on the strings is uneven throughout the tuning process, and at any given moment, a single string could have twice the amount of pressure it normally has. This is fine with good strings, but brittle or rusted strings will snap under the added pressure. The step-up tuning process tunes each note individually, meaning the bi-cord and tri-cord strings are adjusted to match the base pitch string of each note immediately. It may require a bit more work on the technician’s part, because notes are more likely to go out of tune as they work, but it keeps the pressure more even throughout the process, meaning strings are less likely to break.

Though the process isn’t finished yet, surprisingly, none of the strings broke in the Kingston piano. It isn’t technically ‘in-tune’ yet, and the action still needs adjusting, but the notes already sound clearer. Once the piano is in tune, the strings are far more likely to handle future tunings.

Though pianos in this situation may need a little extra regular care moving forward, and may not ever sound like a luxury concert piano, they’ll play well and sound well. This gives sentimental pianos the second chance they need, while saving the customer money in the long run.