Harlow Quill Piano Services

I tune and repair pianos. Uprights and grands, in homes, schools, churches and the two or three halls around here that still keep an instrument in the corner. Most of the work is routine and it should be: a piano that is looked after does not need much, and one that has not been touched in fifteen years needs a conversation before it needs a tuning lever.

If you have just inherited something and have no idea what it is, that is the most common call I get. Send a photograph of the front with the lid up and the make on the fallboard, and I will tell you honestly whether it is worth the money.

Work I take on

Tuning

Standard concert pitch where the instrument will hold it. An old piano that has dropped a long way needs a pitch raise first and then a second tuning a few weeks later — that is two visits and I will say so before the first one, not after it.

Regulation

The mechanical adjustment of the action, so the key does what the finger asks. This is what people mean when they say a piano feels heavy, sluggish or uneven, and it is almost never fixed by tuning.

Voicing

Shaping and needling the hammer felt to change the tone. Brightening is easy; making a hard piano sing again takes longer and is the more common request.

Restoration and repair

Broken strings, sticking keys, worn bushings, failed dampers, cracked bridges. Full rebuilds are quoted individually and I will usually talk you out of one unless the instrument warrants it.

Pre-purchase inspection

Before you buy a second-hand piano, particularly one being sold cheaply or given away. An hour spent here saves the removalist fee on something that cannot be saved.

The thing worth knowing

A piano is a piece of furniture with fifteen to twenty tonnes of tension inside it. It moves with the weather, not with how much you play it — so a piano nobody touches still goes out of tune, and a room that swings between a heater and an open window is harder on it than any amount of practice.

Twice a year suits most instruments. Once a year is fine for a piano in a stable room. If it has been longer than five years, expect the first visit to be about getting it back to a point where a tuning will hold.