07/14/2026
Weather has a considerable affect upon the tuning of a piano.
Typically, the soundboard of a piano (the soundboard is the wooden board in a piano that transforms the vibrations of the strings into the sounds that we hear) is made of spruce. Spruce is the prized wood for stringed instruments, but it has a downside: it is very sensitive to changes in humidity. It readily absorbs or releases moisture in the air around it, which causes it to expand or contract and increase or decrease the pressure that it puts on the music wire. These changes, though imperceptible to the unaided eye, have a real effect upon the tuning of the strings.
This can happen with sudden dramatic change in outdoor temperature, or even a heavy all-day rainstorm.
I have witnessed, more than once, where a customer’s air conditioning quit working, and the temperature in the house quickly rose or fell by a considerable amount; then after two or three days later after the unit was repaired, and the temperature (which has a direct bearing on the humidity) quickly returned to normal, the tuning was shot from all the rapid dramatic fluctuations in humidity!
All this is to point to the need for a piano to be professionally tuned at least once per year. A home’s AC and insulation only buffer the effect the weather has on the tuning, and the piano can still go out of tune, even if it hasn’t been played very much through the year. A piano that is regularly tuned will sort of “lock in” to being in tune, and will better resist the environmental forces that work against the tuning.
P.S.: Sometimes people will tell me that they are going to wait “until the change of the season” before having their piano tuned. Changes in seasons can be so variable, inconsistent, and drawn out, that it’s more like chasing a mirage—the months go by and the “change of the seasons” is long gone. It’s far better to simply keep the piano on a schedule, no matter what time of the year it is!
