The piano singeth again

Received a text message from my piano tuner: "According to my records, your piano was tuned by me in 11/8/07. Would you like to service your piano?" How clever is that? I don't suppose anyone (except piano teachers and musicians) actually keeps track of when they tune their pianos, it's probably Task No.187 on the priority list after "clean fans". So I thought it was rather enterprising of him to gently remind his customers that maintenance is due.

Actually, it's more than due, it's way overdue. You're supposed to tune your piano once every 6-9 months but our last tuning was 2 years ago. But better late than never, right?

First, he opens up the front board and brushes all the felt keys. Then he places this electronic thingamajig on top of the piano, which tells him for each string, how much it needs to be tightened. Gone are the days of metal tuning forks and the tuner's exacting ear, today, even piano tuning relies on technology.

It's quite a mechanical process, you basically test string by string. According to him, my piano is 10% out of tune. Doesn't sound too bad what, considering. I told him it's because my kids hardly practise, haha.

The whole process takes about 45 minutes, then he sits down to test out the sound and the pedals.

Then it's done! And because my piano tuner is such a nice guy, when he saw me taking pictures, he removed the whole lid to show me what it looks like inside.

Pretty nifty instrument, don't you think?