What is a pitch raise, and how will I know if my piano needs one?
If it has been a long time since you have had your piano tuned, or if your piano is new or newly restrung, or is particularly sensitive to changes in humidity it may have drifted substantially far (usually lower) away from it’s proper pitch level. This can be confusing, because often the piano will still sound fairly in tune with itself, but when measured against an outside source such as a tuning fork or other instrument it will be substantially different ! How far away your piano is from this external source or measuring stick will determine if it needs a pitch adjustment or not. The pitch level that is considered standard in modern times is called A440 because the A above middle C on your keyboard is tuned to exactly 440 cycles per second. Every other note is then tuned to this original anchor note. If the piano’s pitch has drifted too far away from this standard it will need a pitch adjustment. This basically amounts to a rough tuning of the instrument to get it to the proper pitch
