Cost of tuning a grand piano?
Discussion
Being a guitarist rather than a pianist my knowledge is probably a little out of date but last time I had a piano tuned it cost £50 and took about 45 minutes. That was quite a few years ago and was at central London prices but I would have thought that something under £100 should cover it.
The problem with getting a baby grand tuned is that as soon as you move into the area of grands rather than uprights you get bracketed with those who have money to burn - and hence the price goes up. There is no sensible reason for this as there are the same number of strings on a grand as on a decent overstrung upright even allowing for double and triple strings above the bass register.
Some friends of mine are fostering a BG at the moment (lucky them) while one of their friends is away for a year and are considering getting it tuned. If they go for it I will let you know what they pay but if you get there first I would be interested to know how you get on.
The problem with getting a baby grand tuned is that as soon as you move into the area of grands rather than uprights you get bracketed with those who have money to burn - and hence the price goes up. There is no sensible reason for this as there are the same number of strings on a grand as on a decent overstrung upright even allowing for double and triple strings above the bass register.
Some friends of mine are fostering a BG at the moment (lucky them) while one of their friends is away for a year and are considering getting it tuned. If they go for it I will let you know what they pay but if you get there first I would be interested to know how you get on.
my BG has cost between 55 and 75 quid to get tuned.....which I thought was pretty good.
Bizarre as it may seem, there do seem to be a few cowboys in the piano tuning market - i know someone who paid over 500 quid to get their full sized grand tuned...without requiring any actual work done!
Remember when buying the piano that a lot will depend on ensuring the string board etc are in really good condition. If the tuning requires any retensioning of the board itself it will get horribly expensive really quickly (cos it runs at such a high pressure)
cheers
Night
Bizarre as it may seem, there do seem to be a few cowboys in the piano tuning market - i know someone who paid over 500 quid to get their full sized grand tuned...without requiring any actual work done!
Remember when buying the piano that a lot will depend on ensuring the string board etc are in really good condition. If the tuning requires any retensioning of the board itself it will get horribly expensive really quickly (cos it runs at such a high pressure)
cheers
Night
simpo two said:And is the thread bothering you?
This one's been going on a while... why not look up Piano Tuners in the Yellow Pages and ask?
Thanks to all others for your input, seems we can drone on about D70's, which I thought was a diesel Volvo 
but can't have 6 posts about pianos, ah well... 
Rich...rustybin said:
All depends on how many Bhp you are looking to get out of it. Have you considered putting it on a rolling road to see what your starting point is and making sure what you have is optimised?
very good point
I used dual-scroll Garrett turbos to ensure the optimum sound delivery at Vmax pedal pressure. In addition it's gighly recommended to fit a set of blue-neon striplights just below the keyboard - helps pick up women when you're out cruisin in your piano.
Oh, as a slightly more sensible aside recently got a digital piano after many years of dithering (i HATE keyboards). Its a Yamaha and frankly f**king brilliant. key weighting is as close to perfect as you'd want and the sound reproduction is great...and its a shed lot more space efficient than the grand. On the downside it doesnt have WW2 shrapnell damage and the other does!
nightmare said:I thought about a Yamaha, as you say they do everything a baby grand will only better, but I already have a Wurlitzer EP200 (electronic) and hardely ever play it these and I just fancy getting something traditional. In fact also fancy a Hammond with a Leslie cabinet and then we really could talk about flashing lighgts and rev-rates
Oh, as a slightly more sensible aside recently got a digital piano after many years of dithering (i HATE keyboards). Its a Yamaha and frankly f**king brilliant. key weighting is as close to perfect as you'd want and the sound reproduction is great...and its a shed lot more space efficient than the grand. On the downside it doesnt have WW2 shrapnell damage and the other does!
Rich... p.s. if I fill the house with keyboards I think my wife would divorce me though ;( RichB said:
And is the thread bothering you?
Rich, I saw your thread not getting any answers. The logical answer to anyone with an iota of initiative is to pick up the friggin' YP and make a call. I didn't suggest that immediately because maybe, just maybe, a PHer might be a tuner or know someone who was. They weren't. So after a while I thought I'd give you what was, to my mind at least, the obvious answer to your problem. I'm sorry I tried to help. Won't do it again.
Edited to add: in case you're not clear how it works, you look up Piano Tuners (hint: it's alphabetical). Then you dial the first number and say 'How much to tune a piano?' And they say '£xx mate'.
Comprendez???
>> Edited by simpo two on Thursday 6th January 21:11
simpo two said:Au contraire... there are plenty of people in The Pie and Piston who have contributed interesting answers.
And is the thread bothering you?
Rich... Yellow pages? Seriously though I was browsing e-bay and there are a few there for around £700-£1000 but then watching them I saw they received no bids and didn't sell so it's a buyers market! Then given advice on the other thread www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=141&t=146324 I decided I would like to play it before buying which rules out some of them due to distance. I guess the answer is a decent piano shop/specialist. Rich…
Seriously though I was browsing e-bay and there are a few there for around £700-£1000 but then watching them I saw they received no bids and didn't sell so it's a buyers market! Then given advice on the other thread www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=141&t=146324 I decided I would like to play it before buying which rules out some of them due to distance. I guess the answer is a decent piano shop/specialist. Rich…
bertie said:
Slightly off topic, but related, can anyone reccomend sowhere to buy a baby grand?
Rich - only problem with spec shop is you pay the 'real' price.... I would suggest, seriously, local papers ads sections....old people often sell that sort of thing off....silly prices, great pianos, hasnt been touched in ten years...100 quid of refurb and it's beautiful.
I reckon buying mine that way saved about 3 grand...
nightmare said:My problem would be that I wouldn't recognise what £100 worth of re-furbing could actually achieve. I guess I would play the piano and think it felt heavy or out of tune or the dampers not working etc. and just think it was no good. Funnily enough I played the Piano on the Orient Express (honeymoon and a few too many drinks, no minded though) and it was one of the worst pianos I have ever played! Really stodgy action, made my fingers hurt after about 5 mins, which was about as long as most people could stand!
Slightly off topic, but related, can anyone reccomend sowhere to buy a baby grand?
Rich - only problem with spec shop is you pay the 'real' price.... I would suggest, seriously, local papers ads sections....old people often sell that sort of thing off....silly prices, great pianos, hasnt been touched in ten years...100 quid of refurb and it's beautiful.
I reckon buying mine that way saved about 3 grand...
Rich...RichB said:
seems we can drone on about D70's
WTF has that got to do with it RichB? If you poke around in forums about photography, expect to see posts about cameras. And my input contains a great deal of information that helps other PHers.
But - 'how much is a piano tuner' - is frankly a waste of cyberspace when by picking up a phone you could find out. Quite why you find my simple answer beneath your dignity defeats me. Let's not actually ring a bloody piano tuner and find out, let's
about for a few weeks instead. Hey, maybe I'll trawl your profile, see what you've up to and slag it off. Ha
ha. Actually no, I can't be bothered.John, having known of you through Pistonheads and the TVRCC for some years I had not marked you down as being rude and arrogant, I was clearly wrong. Your advice may be well appreciated elsewhere however as you have nothing of interest to contribute on this thread you could have simply ignored it. Given the rubbish posted elsewhere on Pistonheads your cutting remarks are quite out of order. Rich...
p.s. Not that I need to justify myself on P'Heads but I posted here in the "business forum" because I thought just maybe there would be a piano tuner here on pistonheads to whom I could direct my business.
>> Edited by RichB on Monday 10th January 11:02
p.s. Not that I need to justify myself on P'Heads but I posted here in the "business forum" because I thought just maybe there would be a piano tuner here on pistonheads to whom I could direct my business.
>> Edited by RichB on Monday 10th January 11:02
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