Mini pianos. What can be said for mini pianos? They seem so appealing, they’re like regular pianos only they fit into much smaller spaces. I would love a mini piano, they’re fun sized pianos. Only let me tell you, If I did have a mini piano it would never get tuned.
All mini pianos have the same one fundamental problem. There’s complicated physicsy stuff which means that pianos are never actually in tune. It’s a problem called inharmonicity, and the problem gets worse when you have thicker strings. Mini pianos come into this because, seeing as they have to have short bass strings (otherwise they wouldn’t be very mini), they have really thick bass strings. This makes it really difficult to tune them. Not only do you have to tune them really wonky to get them sounding in tune, but to a tuner they make all sorts of weird noises which make them sound even less in tune.
That’s the one problem they all share. Then you get into the problems that they each individually have. The issue is that you can’t just take a piano and scale it down. There are things which need to be fixed at certain points, most primarily the keyboard. The keyboard needs to be at the right height and all the keys need to be the right size, otherwise you can’t play it like a piano. But that limits how you’re able to make everything on the inside smaller. And the people who designed these pianos were very clever, but they obviously didn’t compare notes. So you have all sorts of neat solutions to fitting the workings of a piano into a much smaller box while still leaving the keyboard alone, but they’re all different, and none of them give any consideration to how the piano may be tuned.
The worst is the infamous Eavestaff Mini Pianette. You mention that you have one of these to a piano tuner and you’ll likely either hear a long beep or a very large fee. Eavestaff did such a wonderful job of compacting everything into such a small space that you have to wander round the back of the piano to move your tools around every time you change which string you’re tuning. I am incredibly thankful no one has ever asked me to tune one of these. I have had some really awkward ones though and the piano pictured above is possibly the worst.
The problem here is that in order to tune, you need to be able to get to the pin that the string is wrapped around to adjust the tuning and the strings themselves so you can mute the ones you’re not currently tuning. On this piano you can clearly see the pins, they’re right there, but the strings are hidden down in the bottom bit below the action. So, what was I to do? Well, after taking the bottom door off to access underneath the keyboard I could get to the strings, but to mute the strings there would mean that I would have to get off the stool and bend down every few seconds of tuning and then get back up to continue. Not ideal for my back or my sanity. But… all I needed to do was to press something against the strings I’m not currently tuning… and to save space this piano only has two strings per note rather than the usual three, so I only needed to mute one string at a time… I just needed something I could press against the strings without having to bend down to move it.
I can safely say that this is the only piano I have ever tuned with my feet.