Piano

tyllwyd

We recently bought a second-hand piano for around £500 plus the cost of removal which I think was about another £100. We have it tuned every six months at £50 or so, and it currently needs a couple of strings replaced but they aren't crucial ones so I'm putting that off!

From what I can gather, £500 is the least you are looking at for a piano that is worth buying, and ideally you should spend more. Ours has been tuned regularly and was professionally restored within the last 10 years or so, but the piano tuner still sucks his teeth when he comes to tune it because it is worn inside and at some point the soundboard will need to be replaced.

We like our acoustic piano, but if I was buying again I think I'd take a bit longer, go to a few different piano shops & music shops, and buy from someone I trusted. Buying a piano for a few quid on ebay and thinking you can tune it yourself is never going to work. If you aren't sure whether you are going to carry on playing, I'd recommend getting an electric one, then if you give up you should be able to get decent money by selling it again.

Steph312

Saw this from hukd http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BLGZ9A8/
but like tyllwyd said impulse buying is probably not the best idea, especially with type of item.

fluffymuffy

googler wrote: »

"Tuning courses at Newark - Musical Instrument Crafts - Piano Tuning, Maintenance and Repair (Advanced) - A course that will prepare each student to become a professional tuner or technician - The level 3 course is 2 years of full time study. Timetables run over 3 days per week."

The piano manual I mentioned above has a dozen or so pages devoted to the subject, but the author freely admits that the very first time he took a tuning lever to a piano for real, he broke a string. You need to understand equal temperament, some of the notes have to be slightly off for the whole thing to sound right.

I'm planning on getting a tuning lever to bring just one or two of the notes on mine back up to tune, but I'd fight shy of tuning the whole thing straight off. Besides which, the OP wants a piano to play, not one to learn how to tune on ...

You can perhaps judge how tuning expertise is valued by tuners' charges - a garden labourer charges £15 per hour, plumber £25-30 per hour, piano tuner £50 or so ...

My piano tuner qualified via that course. He says it's a three year course in all = as the only way onto the 2 year Advanced course is via the one year Basic course. And the Newark school is the only place in the UK to train as a piano tuner.

He charges £60 to tune a piano (takes up to 2 hours) - if it's been tuned in the last two years, otherwise it's two visits to bring it up to pitch slowly otherwise the strings may break.

Shambler

There's a lot to be said for digital pianos.

They don't go out of tune, you can use headphones so can play late at night, their sound quality can easily surpass that of an upright piano.

Add to this the fact that you can add effects to the sound e.g. reverb to make it sound like you are playing in a concert hall.

You certainly need to have a good think about why you want a real piano compared to a digital one.

koan_2

Shambler wrote: »

There's a lot to be said for digital pianos.

They don't go out of tune, you can use headphones so can play late at night, their sound quality can easily surpass that of an upright piano.

Add to this the fact that you can add effects to the sound e.g. reverb to make it sound like you are playing in a concert hall.

You certainly need to have a good think about why you want a real piano compared to a digital one.

The digital ones are certainly getting better and better, but it won't give you quite the same sound quality as a real piano.

Hopefully the OP managed to find something suitable. I would imagine in London there must be no end of music shops.