Tuning

Maintaining the Steinway Sound

Tuning

The Steinway pianos are tuned many times before it leaves the factory. It was tuned to and should be maintained at a 440 pitch for New York models or 443 pitch for Hamburg models. These are the internationally accepted standards and the standards for which all Steinway pianos are engineered.

Unfortunately, no matter how expertly a piano is tuned, atmospheric variations, particularly humidity, and the nature of the piano's construction constantly conspire to bring it off pitch.

A Steinway piano has been designed and built so that in normal use and under normal conditions it should need only periodic tuning. We recommend that your tuner be called at least 3 or 4 times a year. You, however, are the final judge and should have the piano tuned as often as you think necessary. To put the matter of tuning into perspective, remember that a concert piano is tuned before every performance and a piano in a professional recording studio, where it is in constant use, is tuned 3 or 4 times each week as a matter of course.

Tuning is an art practiced by skilled professionals and under no circumstances should anyone other than a professional be allowed to try to tune your Steinway piano.

Inside a Steinway Grand

A. Action.
B. Keyframe on which action and keys are mounted.
C. Case into which plate and soundboard are fitted and anchored.
D. Braces which bear the strain of stringing (approximately 35,000 lbs. of tension).
E. Soundboard.
F. Wrest plank (pin block) into which tuning pins are anchored.
G. Bridges (bass and treble) through which vibration of strings is transmitted to soundboard.
H. Cast-iron plate.