Piano and Music Videos

We received this question from Luis. He wondered if it would be best to find a piano that has never been played. This is really a interesting question which we will explore today.

Does a piano benefit from being played? To some extent, yes. If a piano is neglected, some of the parts can get jammed up with dirt and dust, key bushings may harden and other action parts may eventually begin to have problems functioning smoothly. There is also the element of discovery. A piano that is played and serviced regularly will receive the attention required to keep it playing on a high level.

On the other hand, if you play the piano frequently, some parts will eventually wear out with use and will need to be replaced. So, there is no absolute in regards to how much a piano should be played.

The ideal situation would be moderate, regular use like having a car you only drive once a month. You might take it around the block every once in awhile, change the oil every three months, fill it with gas, and keep it in the garage. This may not be the most fulfilling way to enjoy your car. But it will age very slowly! Likewise, if you barely play your piano and have it serviced regularly,(assuming a stable environment) it is going to stay in ideal condition but your enjoyment of the instrument will be limited.

If a piano is in your home you should play it as much as you want. Understand that using your piano a great deal is going to require more maintenance (such as more frequent tunings and eventually replacing some action parts). However, the fear of having to invest money in your piano over time shouldn’t prevent your enjoyment of the instrument. Even with intensive practice, you should get many years of service out of a new or newly rebuilt piano before any major work is required.

This might sound like a crazy question but it’s surprisingly important and if you own a piano there are a quite a few things you should know about the various types of finishes. Refinishing a piano is an enormous expense and something that can be avoided with proper care and maintenance.

The classic American finish of a piano is a satin hand-rubbed lacquer finish. It’s an extremely popular type of finish but it’s also very important to know how to maintain properly. You might notice that when you place your hands on your piano you may leave fingerprints. If you use light cleaning products you can wipe these off but you’re leaving yourself open to a larger problem down the road. These types of finishes are porous and if you use cleaning products, they will eventually soak into the finish and will have to be professionally removed later on.

So how do you clean a classic satin finish to avoid additional costs later on? The best thing to do is to use a soft cotton cloth rubbing in the direction of the hand-rubbed lines. If you have fingerprints that have gotten deeply ingrained into the finish, then you should use a slightly damp (not wet) cotton cloth and again, rub in the direction of the hand-rubbed lines. This is the best way to clean a finish like this to avoid damage. And it’s all you need to do to maintain the finish in most cases.

The newer type of finish popularized a few decades ago is the high-gloss polyester finish. When these finishes were first introduced, people thought they would be fragile. To demonstrate their stability, companies at trade shows years ago lit them on fire to show their strength! So, can you destroy this type of finish with your hands? While they might show more fingerprints than a satin type of finish, you can’t easily damage this type of finish with your hands because they are plastic! They are sealed so they aren’t porous so the oils in your hands don’t seep in.

That’s not to say that high gloss finishes aren’t without their problems. If you were to take a music book and toss it onto a high gloss lid of a piano when it’s closed, it can cause scratches and lines in the finish that are impossible to remove except by an expert refinisher. So each of these two types of finishes can be damaged in different ways.

Cleaning a high-gloss finish is rather simple. You can actually use a damp cloth or even Windex to clean any fingerprints or dirt off the piano.

This is a very common question we get around the store. People wonder if it’s necessary to cover their pianos and whether or not it will help to preserve their instruments or the finish of their pianos.

It is not necessary to cover your piano and truthfully it can be a chore to have to constantly cover and uncover the instrument every time you want to play it. However, when we get pianos in the shop that have been kept covered, they can look like new pianos!

A cover over a piano will not only protect it from scratches or dust but it will slow the aging process – particularly for the furniture. If a piano is in direct sunlight, the finish will eventually suffer sun damage. The finish might change color in spots that are exposed to the sun and the finish may dry out and eventually start flaking off.

If you have a piano in your home that has direct sunlight on it you should definitely get either shades for the window or a cover for the piano. Sun damage can inflict thousands of dollars of damage to a piano’s finish over a short period of time.

More important than covering your piano is to close the lid when you are done playing. The humidity and temperature changes particularly at night can adversely affect the integrity of your piano. You can’t stop all exposure to the elements. However, providing constant air conditioning and humidity control in the room the piano is located can slow the aging process particularly when combined with keeping the piano closed.

Unless you are in a harsh environment where there are wild swings of temperature and humidity, you don’t necessarily need to close the lid of the piano but it certainly will help to prolong the life of the instrument. The most important thing to avoid is direct sunlight on your piano.

While it’s not necessary to cover your piano it can help. If you are playing it all the time it might be cumbersome to constantly cover the piano but it will help to delay the aging process and keep your instrument fresher longer.

For pianos in institutional settings, covering the piano can be a lifesaver from potential abuse.

You wouldn’t think that it would be tough dealing with a new piano. You would expect that you would simply set it up in your home and enjoy it. But it isn’t that simple. Caring for your piano is an important process and today I am going to offer a few tips to help you settle your piano in your home and prolong the enjoyment of your instrument.

First things first, you’ll want to make sure you are purchasing the right size piano for your home. I have a separate video that specifically addresses this situation:

Where to Place the Piano

There are all sorts of questions associated with placing a piano in a room: should you put it near a wall? How about placing a piano near a window? etc.

While there are a number of questions associated with placing a piano in a room, there is a simple rule to follow: if it is a place you personally would be comfortable sitting day in and day out, it’s probably a good spot for your piano!

Thing’s You Want to Avoid

Direct Sunlight

This is one of the most common problems with pianos in homes. People love the idea of placing a piano near an exposed window because it’s typically a nice spot for the instrument. This might actually be the worst spot in a room for a piano because the sun can cause an incredible amount of damage to the case of a piano sometimes in just a few weeks.

I can’t tell you how many people contact us with pianos they want to sell or consign that have significant sun damage. When you keep a piano in a room with the fly lid folded over the case and let it sit that way in direct sunlight you, your piano can become two-toned like this:

Luckily you can fix this but it’s not cheap and requires very specialized furniture work from a professional.

Avoid Air Vents and Keep a Consistent Environment

There is no quicker way to ruin an upright piano then placing it in front of a hot or cold air vent on a wall, or placing a grand piano over a vent blowing hot or cold air. Cold air return is not really a problem since it is pulling the air in, but keeping a piano near a vent blowing hot or cold air can damage your piano.

FInd the place in your home that has moderate temperature and humidity. Around 45-50% humidity is the ideal environment for your piano.

Excessive humidity can lead to rust on metal parts including the strings, and affect the tuning stability of the instrument.

Excessive dry environments can dry the wood, leather and felt parts – causing cracks in the soundboard, action issues and noise, along with other problems.

Luckily there are ways to tell if your piano is in the right environment. You can purchase an inexpensive humidity gauge to get an idea of the internal environment in your home. You can add humidifiers or plants to a room to add humidity to a room or get a dehumidifier or air conditioner to remove it.

Keep in mind, that enjoying your piano is important but it shouldn’t negatively affect your home. If you live near the beach you may want to keep your windows open. Fortunately there is a solution for you. A Dampp-Chaser system will be able to control the temperature and humidity of your piano’s soundboard. This is something you can have your piano technician install for you.

How Often to Tune

If you are buying a new piano or a piano that has just been rebuilt it will require more maintenance than other pianos in the first couple of years of ownership. The piano has to settle into it’s environment and it will require more frequent tunings as the strings stretch so it can stabilize.

You’ll probably want to have the piano tuned as the seasons change because the different temperatures and environments will affect the tuning of the instrument. At the least you will want to tune it two times a year when you go from heat to air conditioning and then back again. Even if the piano sounds OK, it might actually shift down or up and you might not notice. If you allow it to lose pitch over time, it can lead to more work for your piano tuner as they try and get it to hold a tuning at the standard A440 pitch.

There are applications you can get on your phone to see if your piano is playing at A440. Just load up the app, play A above middle C and see if your piano is in the range of A440. If it’s off by more than a couple of cents (438, 437, etc.), it’s certainly time to call your piano tuner.

Ask Your Tuner or Technician

Even if your piano seems fine, ask your tuner what maintenance it might benefit from such as lubricating the action, minor regulation, etc. – because these small things can add up and require major work in the future if you don’t keep on top of it.

Just getting a piano technician in your home can be an expensive task, so once they are there you should have them do any of the work that’s necessary since the extra amount they charge is often well worth it. Plus, you get to enjoy your piano on a higher level!

It’s also important that you find the best piano technician you can. The most expensive is not always the best, but you certainly don’t want to find someone who isn’t qualified to do the work needed – a piano in the wrong hands can be disastrous. A good idea is to look for local concert series or local symphony orchestra and see if you can find out who tunes their pianos – they probably utilize higher level piano technicians than average.