Piano Care

Have Your Piano Tuned Regularly. Twice a Year, Minimum

Ask your technician to do a minor "touch-up" regulation at each tuning. This will prevent most instances of unnecessary wear and breakage.

Have a full regulation done every 2 to 5 years. You'd be surprised at how your piano should have sounded and  responded to you playing all these years.

Don't attempt any "home repairs" on your piano. Although it may appear easy to fix yourself, an innocent mistake can be costly. Let a technician do it - they have the right tools, replacement parts and expertise to do the job right the first time.

Keep your piano away from heating registers, radiators, fireplaces and air conditioning vents. Subjecting it to extreme fluctuations of temperature and humidity levels can do major damage. Keeping a piano away from an outside wall was probably necessary in poorly insulated older Victorian homes, but should not be a problem these days. Avoid direct sunlight on your piano - it can damage and fade the finish, or even create horrible tuning problems. Use curtains or blinds.

Try and keep the temperature and humidity levels as consistent as possible in the room where you have your piano. Using a temperature/humidity gauge (hygrometer) can keep this in check. Click here to view/purchase one. Seasonal swings in relative humidity are the piano's greatest enemy. Swelling and shrinking of wooden parts affect tuning and keyboard touch, while extreme swings can eventually cause wood to crack and glue joints to fail. Pianos are happiest in a relative humidity level of 40 to 45 percent. If you don't have a central humidifier/dehumidifier, consider getting a room humidifier for the winter, and a room dehumidifier or air conditioner during the summer months. There's even such thing as a special piano humidifier/dehumidifier that can be installed in your piano. Ask your piano technician.

Keep plants, vases, drinks, or anything to do with liquid off the piano. Condensation can ruin the finish, and spillage of liquids into the inner mechanism can result in irreversible damage.

To prevent scratches on the finish, never place objects on your piano without a soft cloth or felt.

Don't use furniture polish to clean your piano. It can soften the finish if overused, and the silicone & oils present in many household brands can even contaminate the wood, despite what the labels may say.

Just feather-dust the piano first (dust is abrasive, so wiping it first can cause scratches), then wipe with a soft, damp cotton cloth, wiping in the direction of the grain. Then, wipe up any excess moisture with a similar dry cloth.

Do the same thing as above to clean your keys, but use separate cloths for the blacks and the whites. Don't use cleaning agents!

If more thorough cleaning and polishing is desired, special polishing products are available through us, and they are made specifically for piano finishes. Click here to view and/or puchase these products online.

The Keys:

It is recommended to clean the keys with a light soap solution preferably that of Ivory brand

The Cabinet:

Some pianos, especially those with high-gloss finish should be handled with utmost care. Use a new soft cloth to wipe the cabinet. Do not use old towel converted into rags as the rough fabric can scratch the finishing. And the small particles, even dust can leave permanent graze over the glossy cover. To clean, wipe a damp rag over a small portion and then immediately wipe the area with dry cloth. The wet portion must not be left wet for more than a minute. Repeat process until the entire cabinet is cleaned.

To polish the cabinet it is best to use piano polish. Furniture paste wax will do as well. An old upright piano with an old wood finish may be cleaned with one of those new orange spray cleaner/polisher. Do not use the usual aerosol cleaner on a piano as it contains alcohol that will react with the finishing or tarnish the varnish or lacquer paint on your piano surface. You can buy specially designed piano polisher and polishing cloth as well in most piano stores.

The piano should be positioned by the wall of the home and not along a concrete block or floor as they can cause unstable temperature due to dampness. Constant changing of temperature can cause your piano to go out of tune. But the foremost cause of the change in tune is the change in humidity.

Having a piano at home is achieving a lot of goals. Other than it being an attraction, most of the time, visitors tend to assume that when a homeowner has a piano in his home he is not only musically inclined but also knows how to belong in the elite society. It is because a piano is still seen as a classical and very important musical instrument.