In order to continue to reward you with a pleasing touch and beauty of tone, your piano needs regular, knowledgeable care. Paul Milesi is an Associate Member of the Piano Technicians Guild. With a lifetime of experience as a professional pianist and extensive training as a professional piano technician, you can be assured that he brings an intelligent and musically informed approach to each and every piano he meets. His goal is to provide you with first-class piano service that leads to a satisfying musical result. Paul tunes in private homes as well as in public venues such as schools, hotels, restaurants and jazz clubs. He recently tuned for an appearance by Jennifer Hudson at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC, and has tuned pianos in the presidential suites of the Mandarin and Westin Embassy Row hotels for VIP guests like Barbra Streisand and Herbie Hancock, and at the Warner Theater for the Washington Post Music & Dance Awards. Paul also maintains the piano at Twins Jazz, a well-known Washington DC jazz club where he regularly tunes for such artists as Andrew Adair, Bob Butta, Cyrus Chestnut, Harold Mabern, Jr., Larry Willis, and many others.
DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES Tuning Seasonal changes in relative humidity, as well as the normal continual decrease of static tension, cause all pianos to go out of tune over time. Depending on where you live, the amount of temperature and humidity change from season to season, the quality and condition of your piano, and how much the piano is played, your piano could need tuning two to four times yearly. There are two types of tunings: Fine Tuning and Chip Tuning. During a fine tuning, we set the temperament and carefully tune every string for the greatest clarity. Each piano must be fine-tuned to itself, taking into account its own unique characteristics and inharmonicity to achieve a truly musical result. When a piano is significantly below standard concert pitch (A=440Hz), the tone of the piano is dull and lackluster, and other instruments may have difficulty playing in tune with it. In this case, before we can successfully achieve a stable fine tuning, we must first do a rough tuning of every string so that each is very close to the pitch at which it will end up during the fine tuning. This gross pitch adjustment is called chip tuning or pitch raising. Sometimes the entire piano must be chip tuned more than once to ensure stability of pitch for a good fine tuning.
Repair Your piano is a mechanical instrument, made up of 9,000-14,000 parts, most of which are wood or felt. Being a mechanical device, your piano will need repairs from time to time. Felt and leather parts wear out, and wooden action parts can break, even on the most expensive of pianos.
Regulation & Cleaning Your piano action—like your car—needs regular adjustment, called “regulation.” Parts shrink and swell as the humidity changes, wear with use, and fatigue with age. Dirt and grit cause premature wear of felt, leather and wooden action parts. Periodic cleaning and regulation prolong the life of your piano. Proper regulation also ensures optimum responsiveness and an even, uniform “feel” to the action. A well-regulated piano is a joy to play! While new pianos usually arrive fairly well regulated, the felt and leather parts “break in” and minor regulation is usually needed, even during the first or second year of use.
Voicing Voicing is also called “tone regulating,” and it is really the final step of regulating the piano. During voicing, we treat the piano’s hammers in various ways to achieve a full, clear and pleasing tone, and a smooth progression from one register to another.
Climate Control System Installation, Service & Repair Pianos are designed to be at 42% relative humidity (R.H.). With its humidifier and dehumidifier components, a Dampp-Chaser Piano Life Saver System® installed in your piano effectively compensates for climatic changes, keeping your piano at 42% R.H., plus or minus 5%, all year round. As a result, the thousands of wood and felt parts remain more stable, so your tuning and regulation remain more stable as well. Proper humidity control also prevents rust from forming on the strings and sticking keys and actions (from too much humidity), as well as loose keys, loose action parts, loose tuning pins, split pinblocks, cracks in the soundboard and loose glue joints (from excessive dryness).
Annual Piano Service Maintenance Agreement Because
we receive so many requests for regular care from our clients, we
have developed an affordable program to provide you with the services
your piano needs on a regular basis.
Estimates We are always happy to recommend and discuss with you the services your piano requires to put it in the very best condition possible, or in a condition that pleases you and meets your needs. |
