Pianos Inside Out is a comprehensive guide that takes an in-depth look at the history, design, and maintenance of the piano, and provides practical guidance to anyone who wants to learn how to tune, repair, regulate, voice, rebuild, or improve the action performance of pianos. You will discover how to evaluate the piano, assess what is needed, and develop a rebuilding plan. You will learn how to restore a keyboard and action, how to select and install new hammers, rebuild dampers, restring the piano, replace its pinblock, repair the soundboard, regild the plate, and refinish the case.
Covering a wide range of concepts, from introductory to advanced, Pianos Inside Out puts between two covers all the advancements and understanding gained by the piano industry over the last 30 years. It provides a coherent, in-depth view of that much-needed information, including the topics such as:
 
Wave impedance and soundboard performance
Coincident partial tuning
Interval inharmonicity
Touchweight analysis
String leveling
Modern lubricants
 
Pianos Inside Out is written for hobbyists, students, and piano technicians, but it will also help pianists and owners of pianos to better understand their instruments and to communicate more effectively with their technicians. The book is full of clear, concise, step-by-step instructions, and more than 700 illustrations and diagrams. Featuring “Myth/Truth” boxes, and enhanced by multiple sidebars, tables, worksheets, and troubleshooters, the book is “very articulate, yet has a casual readability and isn’t off-puttingly wordy or overly complicated or presumptuously definitive” (Allen Wright, RPT, consulting technician and restorer for Steinway & Sons London, John Broadwood & Sons, and Period Piano Company).
 
Many books in this genre present a simplistic view of piano work, encouraging a casual and sometimes careless do-it-yourself attitude. Pianos Inside Out presents more accurate descriptions of—and warnings about—the complexities and pitfalls one is likely to encounter in this work, providing an “introduction to the profession and the scope of work involved that might encourage some people to become techs and others to forget about it” (Laurence Libin, Editor-in-Chief, Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments).
 
Pianos Inside Out isn’t merely a book of recipes that regurgitates instructions from service manuals—rather, it shows how to create one’s own recipes. In addition to suggesting methods and specifications, the book discusses the reasons for and the dependencies among various aspects of design, regulation, tuning, and voicing, thus enabling the reader to draw his or her own conclusions while gaining a deep understanding of this complex subject.