In October 2014, I found a free piano on Craigslist. It was so out of tune that some of the treble keys (which have three strings each) played three different distinct notes at once! But I have played many, many upright pianos by now, in various states of disrepair, and I liked the feel of this one. The keys were intact, the soft pedal and damper pedal worked, and it was very resonant.
I paid movers to transport it to my apartment, and I hired a piano technician to fix up the action. When we opened up the cabinet of the instrument, we found so much dust and mold! So my task for the next couple months was to clean the keys and vacuum the interior as thoroughly as I could. When we finally put it back together, I attempted to tune it myself. I had adequate tools, and a relatively good ear, but it was my first time, and I didn’t realize that a bunch of the treble tuning pegs were loose.
Yesterday, I hired that same technician to tune it professionally, and he showed me how some of the pegs were so loose, they could slip very easily. So, I’m going to keep track of which keys slip out of tune, and eventually I will use a hammer to drive those pegs deeper into the wood of the soundboard before I get it tuned again!
I made this recording within two hours of having the piano tuned. It’s a longer format than usual – I couldn’t resist! Enjoy.