Pianos look like furniture to most people. Owners dust them, maybe polish them, and treat them like a beautiful object in the room. But inside that polished cabinet is a pressure vessel, around 18 to 22 tons of tension across the plate when fully strung, mediated by wood, glue joints, steel, copper windings, action geometry, and thousands of discrete points of friction. They’re machines. Very, very complex machines. And they cannot perform correctly unless the system is in balance.
Climate is the biggest influencer here in Rhinelander. Winter heat in northern Wisconsin is aggressive, dry, and cycling day to night is brutal. The spruce soundboard shrinks, the crown drops, pitch falls, bridges and pinblocks lose pressure. Then spring comes, humidity rises, everything expands again, totally different tuning pressure, totally different hammer/string interaction.
More than “tuning” stability requires voicing, regulation, hammer maintenance, occasionally string replacement, and especially humidity control. The player hears “out of tune”. The piano technician sees a mechanical system slowly drifting out of tolerance.
And older pianos here often have mileage. Northwoods cabins, older Victorians, lake homes with seasonally variable occupancy, instruments that have lived through 40-80 winters. Many have original hammers that are too compacted to respond correctly or key bushings that are binding. Some have never had regulation. Many have been tuned only to pitch, not stabilized across unisons.
That is why a serious piano tuner/technician is valuable. They don’t just set A440. They stabilize the piano so it holds pitch in the climate. This is the approach Bill’s Piano Services takes in Rhinelander. We tune, yes — but we also condition, evaluate, regulate, and make sure the tuning actually stays in the instrument when the weather swings.
Discover - Rhinelander, WI
Rhinelander is the county seat of Oneida County and sits where the Wisconsin and Pelican Rivers meet. Early settlers called the area Pelican Rapids because of the rough water just upstream, but the name changed when the Brown family envisioned a mill town here in the 1870s. Anderson and Webster Brown pushed their family to buy the federal land, convinced the pine stands and river power would support major lumber operations. The town was ultimately named for Frederic W. Rhinelander, president of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore and Western Railway, as part of the Browns’ strategy to secure a rail extension. After more than a decade of negotiation, that rail line was completed in 1882, and commercial development took off.
Testimonials
If I could give more than 5 stars, I would! Bill is a wonderful, friendly person that just happens to be an exceptional piano tuner. I have trusted my Yamaha Disklavier baby grand piano to Bill since the time I purchased it new quite a few years ago. Bill has kept it sounding like they day it was delivered. Living in the Northwoods, the piano is subject to winter dryness and Bill also maintains the add-on automatic humidification system. Now if only I could play as great as the piano sounds. :)
Laurel T.
Bill was a pleasure to work with. He got the old neglected piano that came with the house I bought into shape. Very easy to work with and honest prices. Highly recommened.
Wes S.
I have a Steinway baby grand piano that had been sadly neglected, out of tune, several sticking keys and full of cat hair. Bill pulled the action and returned to his shop. After a little over a week he returned , cat hair gone, sticking keys fixed etc. After a few road blocks I can say the piano is in the best shape it's been in years and sounds amazing! I can't say enough about what a pleasure it was to have Bill work on the instrument and what a fantastic job he did! Thank you so much Bill!
Lois M.
OR GIVE US A CALL
BENEFITS 1
Insert content
BENEFITS 2
Insert content
BENEFITS 3
Insert content
Hire Us! Best and Top Rated Piano Tuning and Repair in Rhinelander, WI
Piano owners know that cheap tunings don’t save money. They shorten the life of your piano and guarantee instability. The real value is not the 60-minute appointment but it’s the stability afterward.
Bill’s Piano Services approaches piano tunings and repairs the way a technician should, with attention to tension balancing across the plate, hammer voicing that fits how you play, and humidity strategy that makes sense for northern Wisconsin.
If you want your piano to actually sound like itself, and stay that way, schedule a visit with Bill’s Piano Services today.