Generally speaking, a fortepiano will be harder to lower in pitch than it will be to raise I believe this to be due to the fact that as we lower the pitch we are allowing the wood to expand it will then want to expand a bit further, and that will raise the pitch once again. On a modern piano the first is made considerably easier by the fact that all the tension is supported by the iron frame although a raising or lowering of 1/ 2 step is not usually achieved in one tuning on a modern piano, the movement of the instrument is still considerably less than it would be on a harpsichord or a wooden-framed piano, where the tension is carried entirely by wood. There are only two basic aspects of tuning any keyboard instrument: making the strings go where you want them, and making them stay there. I will speak here uniquely of tuning techniques, neither of pitch nor temperament there are many fine sources on those subjects, and they need not be gone into here. Indeed, it took me several years to learn the following “tricks”, and I believe they have served me well with all types of wooden-framed pianos, both originals and replicas. I quickly abandoned this practice, as the results were often disastrous. In my early years of giving concerts, I would often allow the local tuner to tune the instrument these were sometimes very experienced tuners of either modern pianos or harpsichords or both. It has been my experience that different types of keyboard instruments require different tuning techniques this has nothing to do with one’s ear. Thus I have probably had as much experience as anyone on this planet tuning fortepianos, since I have to practice my scales and octaves so much… When practicing I must be in tune just as when practicing I must play clean octaves. If in a concert, my scales are messy or my octaves sloppy, that seriously affects my performance: the same is true if my unisons are out of tune. I demand that my instruments always be in tune, even when I am practicing, because tuning is part of what I do. CBH Technical Library - Early piano V - Observations on tuning a fortepianoĪ string player friend of mine tells me that when he was a child his teacher always admonished him, “Remember, whatever virtues you may have as a player, if you don’t play in tune, you have nothing.” Similarly, Robert Winter, in his article on 19th-century pianos in the February 1984 number of Early Music reminds us that our enthusiasm for the sound of these earlier instruments may not be shared by the general public, “for whom out of tune is simply out of tune.” I have been playing early pianos for about 15 years, and this means that I have been tuning them for the same length of time.
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