A piano can be in tune and still feel wrong

Before asking a technician to change something inside a piano, play the passage that is giving you trouble. A key that resists the finger and a note that sounds too harsh are different observations. Neither, on its own, tells you which part needs attention.

Yamaha’s maintenance guide separates tuning, regulation and voicing. Tuning changes string tension to set pitch; regulation concerns the keyboard and action; voicing adjusts hammer felt to shape tone. A hammer strikes the string, so the material making contact matters as well as the pitch of the vibrating string.

David Durben, a Yamaha piano technician, stresses the need for someone who can “effectively communicate with you”. The player has a part in that exchange too. Show where a quiet phrase becomes difficult to control, rather than arriving with a diagnosis of the mechanism.

Hélène Grimaud’s recording of Bach’s Prelude in C minor, BWV 847, offers a listening companion: pay attention to the beginnings of notes and differences in their strength. It is not evidence of the instrument’s condition. At your own piano, the useful demonstration is the passage you cannot yet make sound as you intend.