I have a old upright piano from 1896! It sounds wonderful and strong

My husband and I have just purchased a square grand. We will pick it up in a couple of weeks. I'm guessing we will have a sharp learning curve to do repairs ourselves. As you said, it seems few people want to touch these beauties to repair/restore them. But we are already dedicated to it after checking it out last week.

After 25 years with a Victorian cottage piano from 1845, I found an amazing tuner who worked on it for me and made it enjoyably playable. It was not inexpensive but worthwhile for me. You are a long way from here (Australia) but give it time and keep asking. There are people who can do it.

Thank you for sharing. I have one too. Its very difficult to find anyone to tune it or work on it. Every square grand I have heard has a slightly different sound. I really like them.

7 months later we are finally try to get my spinet piano tuned

I've just found your channel by chance and left comments on other videos before I found this one ! I'm heavily 'into' Pianos - since the age of 5 - now 68 ! I have a 1927 Dale Forty Player Piano - had it nearly 28 years now, and I LOVE it. Old Pianos have such a good tone to them. Well done with your channel, I'm now a subscriber and look forward to following you. Thanks - take care, from England.

I love these old square grand pianos, sadly they are hard to tune and costly to restore as they have been obsolete since the early 1900's. The upright kind of took over more and more towards the late 1800's. So parts etc is hard to find or have to remade completely. This piano has been well taken care of over time, and has a great sound for a square piano. :)

A little clarification. A440 pitch was made the standard in 1927. At that time many of the American pianos had already been made to be tuned to that pitch for some years. European pianos tended to be tuned to A435 (at one point in my life I had a German upright piano from approximately 1910 that was tuned to A435 and it sounded weird because it sounded a half tone low. It also had 85 keys rather than 88, another European standard). IMHO as far as square pianos are concerned, there's a reason (and probably several) that they want out of fashion about 1890 or so. They may look great, and they are great conversation pieces, but as instruments, they leave more than a little to be desired.

This is so cool to see thanks for sharing. What’s the name of that waltz you played I love it.

I thing if this piano holding in tune and soundboard and bridges are in good condition you dont need to restore whole piano in your case if you found piano technician that will know how to tefurbish action and regulate it that would be something like good solution on budget for you Btw I am from europe and I personaly feel same thing with piano technicians but instead of square pianos we have vienesse grand pianos ( pianos with vienesse action ) every technician will say you dont buy it and people like me are like hmm mahagony veneer , turned legs , crispness of crisp music stand ,candle stands and under mark of maker on fall board :für gräfin von Buguoy And Now Iam in very nice situation when piano technician saying you no dont buy it this need soundboard shimming repining and action refelting And Im like oh ok I very understand you But I need this piano

I would cover those old hammers with KEVLAR tape , just strech it tight over ths felts. I have done this to my 1930 Brock and the sound is great and felts will nolonger wear.. Just super glue the ends of tape and pull tight over felt, noglue on actual felt.

These wonderful instruments are glorious to play. They went out of fashion because people didn't know how to tune them or regulate them and to replace the keys is more involved than just pulling out a hammer and replacing it so most technicians didn't like them. I've fount that the other common complaint "they really can't be tuned" is rubbish. If your pin block hasn't been cracked by some over enthusiastic tuner they can most certainly be tuned, and they can hold their tuning. My 1795 broadwood square which I restored in 2011 hasn't been tuned since 2012 and it's still vaguely in tune. I'd stay away from those companies that advertise on you tube. you need it restored, not gutted. A lot of them tell you it needs this and that replacing because they can and it all adds up to $$$. replacing a shank is the easiest thing in the world and doesn't require any special skills. Just some animal glue and hot water to dissolve the glue. Good luck with it.

If a clavichord grew up and matured.

So first came the clavichord then the clavichord gave birth to square grand piano then square grand gave birth to different upright and grand pianos

Im coming back to this video 5 months later we have another piano its more out of tune it almost a half step out of tune because some times some note will sound like the note before and the other one will sound more like what it intended to sound

What do you tune it to then? 436?

Just some fact checks from your description, A 440 was used in America a lot since the 1890's, it's obvious because countless uprights that were produced in the 1899 to 1910 years are tuned to A 440, I've played a bunch of them myself, and they hold up just fine at standard pitch. It's the old German uprights with birdcage actions that are tuned to 435. Square pianos were an old enough design that they had to be tuned to 435, 435 was also the other standard pitch at the time in Europe which I'm 90 percent sure is where the square piano originated. They also weren't designed for heavy classical music, they don't have the tone for it, neither do they have the mechanical strength, I strongly advise you not to play heavy music on that piano because you might have another broken hammer shank. Standard A 440 pitch was declared the standard in 1927 I believe after orchestras kept tuning their instruments higher and higher, sometimes to stupidly high pitches like A 458 because the higher the pitch the brighter the music. A 440 I think was a compromise. A 432 was never used as far as a standard for piano tuning as far as I'm aware. Anyway, nice piano, nice to see that it can still play passably and that the ivories are in good shape, those are the first to get wrecked.

Does yours have the leather wrapped hammer felts in the treble section?

I see square pianos are very rare but my piano sounds out of tune a little it's a spinet piano I think and brand name is gulbransen piano

My c3 sounds more in tune then c4 and a4 sounds the same like ur piano I think the lower notes of my piano is more in tune