01
Arrival & reading
Shoes covered, drop sheet down, hygrometer placed at instrument height for five minutes while we talk about what you have been hearing.
Our approach · Written by Daniel Okonjo, tuner
Measure the
room. Then
touch the piano.
Moor & Pitch was started after eleven years of tuning the same instruments twice a year and watching them drift for reasons that had nothing to do with the tuning. The fix was almost always the air in the room. So that is where every visit now begins.
Credentials
Trade-trained in piano technology, member of an Australian piano technicians' association, public liability insured, police-checked for school and studio work.
Standing rule
If the room is fighting the instrument, we say so before we take your money for a tuning that will not hold.
Moor Street 128, 3065 Melbourne · 40732529615
One tuner, your piano's whole history
Ten years of readings on one page tells you more about a piano than any single afternoon with a tuning lever.
There is no roster of contractors here. The person who tunes your piano this autumn is the person who tuned it last spring, and who will remember that the third-octave unisons go first when the heating comes on in May.
We keep a simple file for every instrument: make, serial number, pitch on arrival, humidity at instrument height, work carried out, and anything we want to watch. Clients get a copy by email after each visit. Teachers use them at insurance and valuation time; apartment owners use them when a building's heating system changes and the piano suddenly behaves differently.
We do not sell pianos, we do not take commissions from dealers, and we will happily tell you that a $600 marketplace upright is not worth a $1,400 humidity system. The advice you get is the advice we would give a friend on the same floor of the same building.
How a visit runs
Ninety minutes, start to finish
02
Pitch check
We measure how far the piano has drifted and in which direction. That number decides whether today is a tuning or the first half of a pitch raise.
03
Tuning
Temperament set, octaves stretched to suit the scale of your instrument and the size of your room, unisons finished by ear.
04
Touch attention
Sluggish keys, noisy pedals, buzzing dampers and loose castors are dealt with on the spot where a few minutes will fix them.
05
The honest verdict
If the room is the problem, we show you the numbers and explain the options, including the option of doing nothing this year.
06
Written record
A short emailed note: pitch on arrival, humidity, work done, and the month we would suggest for the next visit.
Advice you would give a friend. Then a tuning that holds.
Instruments we look after often
- Yamaha U1 & U3
- Kawai K-series
- Beale uprights
- Ronisch
- Steinway O & A
- Schimmel
- Petrof
- Second-hand Japanese grands