McCullough Tuning Tutorial
back to Blackstone Piano
Introduction
Welcome to the McCullough Piano Tuning Tutorial. This site features the first tutorial on the internet to include a full audio demonstration of tuning, as well as the temperament I created, and techniques and opinions about tuning not found in most books or other tutorials. Whether you are new to piano tuning or a seasoned veteran, I hope you find this site useful and/or thought provoking.
Colin McCullough
The following is an index of the chapters found in this tutorial. Please click on any of these titles to view the pages:
Advice and Opinions
References
Why I Created This Tutorial
There are many books about piano tuning available, not to mention home study courses, independent and school training programs. I wanted to create a resource that was free and available for everyone to use. Since piano tuning is so centered on what you hear, I couldn’t imagine trying to learn to tune from a book or written explanation without the audio examples of what you’re listening for! I’ve been very fortunate to have had such talented teachers and colleagues. I hope by sharing some of my experience it will be a benefit for others.
When I put this tutorial together, I had three kinds of people in mind:
- People who are curious about piano tuning, including musicians who would like to try tuning their own piano. Note to musicians who may think tuning will come easily and naturally – I DARE you to give it a shot!
- People who are interested in piano tuning as a profession, but would like to try it out first before investing a lot of money in professional study
- Piano tuners who are open to and interested in learning other tuning methods
What you need to hear
People often assume I must have excellent hearing to be a piano tuner. I don’t think my hearing is any better than most, actually (ask my wife). On the other hand, I’ve seen a few claims that anyone can learn to tune a piano. I don’t believe this is true, either. As a piano tuner, you need to be able to recognize relationships between notes, and have a good sense of relative pitch. Learning to recognize the relationships of notes is something that can come with learning and practice. Not everyone has a good sense of relative pitch, so I don’t believe that anyone can tune a piano, at least by ear. Besides, what you can hear is only part of the skill needed to tune a piano (see my 50/50 rule of piano tuning).
People also assume that you need perfect pitch to tune pianos. This is not true either. All tuning is done relative to something already in tune, whether it is a tuning fork or another tuned note. Again, relative pitch is a must, but perfect pitch has nothing to do with it.
Bach Prelude
Why not provide a musical example of what my tuning sounds like, before you delve into my tuning method? Here is a recording of J.S. Bach’s Prelude #1 from The Well-Tempered Clavier recorded after I finished tuning the piano for this tutorial. I don’t claim to be much of a pianist; I only recorded this so people could hear an example of my tuning, not to be critiqued on my playing ability (so go easy on me). It is an effective test of the accuracy and consistency of the tuning, as well as a check on the evenness of the piano’s action regulation and voicing.
This is only a beginning
This tutorial is not intended to be a substitute for professional training. If you found this website helpful and want to learn more about piano tuning, please go to the References page and the Advice & Opinions page. There you will find a number of suggestions and resources to help you continue learning.
Questions/comments/guest book
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at blackstonepiano@att.net. Also, please sign our guest book if you have any comments (preferably positive).
