Basic Piano Care ~ Where Do I Begin?
From the Piano Technicians Guild:
A Lifetime Of Enjoyment
A piano brings a lifetime of enjoyment to you and your family. As you might expect with any investment of this size, a piano requires periodic servicing to provide outstanding performance year after year. But to understand what maintenance is required, it’s important to understand the nature of the piano.
The beautiful, natural sound of a piano is due to the remarkable blending of such materials as wood, metal, buckskin, and wool. Together they create a uniquely timeless sound that no other instrument in the world can duplicate. While electronic synthesizers may approximate the sound of an acoustic piano, they cannot approach the true beauty of the real thing.
Pianos are peculiar in the sense the more often they are tuned, the longer they stay in tune. And conversely, the less often they’re tuned, the faster they go out of tune. Thus a piano that’s not been tuned for many years will usually not hold the first tuning as long as a piano that has been tuned on a regular basis.
Schedule Your Piano Tuner Regularly
Keep your piano in tune so you can enjoy the full potential of your piano. ( Piano Manufacturers Recomendations ) It was specifically designed to be tuned to the international pitch standard of A-440 cycles per second. Your piano will sound its best and give you and your family the most pleasure when it is tuned regularly and kept in proper playing condition.
Protect Your Piano From Dust
Keep your piano clean. Keep the keyboard covered when not in use to prevent dust from accumulating. Clean keys by occasionally wiping them with a damp cloth and drying them immediately. If accumulated debris cannot be removed with a damp cloth, try wiping the cloth on a bar of mild soap or moisten with dishwasher detergent before wiping. Do not use chemicals or solvents to clean piano keys. Call a qualified piano technician to remove anything from the keys you cannot wipe away.
Piano Cleaning
Professional piano cleaning
Air compressor used for cleaning pianos
Cleaning the outside cabinet of a piano can be done by the customer, but cleaning the soundboard, under the strings, around the tuning pins and inside the action can only be done by a professional. You will enjoy a clean piano after it has been cleaned by a professional.
Piano cleaning involves:
- Vacuuming as much dust and dirt as possible
- Blowing out the remaining dust with a compressor
- Pulling the action and blowing dust from action and keybed
- Wiping the soundboard with a special soundboard tool made for cleaning
- Wiping down the outside cabinet