Music Gallery of Clearwater

Caring for your new piano

Congratulations!  You are the owner of a superb musical instrument. Your new piano is built with supreme care. It is constructed of the best materials available. It is the finest example of the piano-maker's craft.

You have purchased a thoroughbred and it should be cared for as such. Don't assume that because you have invested in a fine instrument it will perform perfectly without periodic adjustments. It is a highly sophisticated mechanism which contains thousands of individual parts that must function as a perfectly balanced and integrated unit. Routine maintenance will be necessary if it is to continue to perform up to its potential. 

The care of your new piano will not be particularly time consuming or expensive. Start right now by spending a few minutes with this section to learn the basics of piano care. After you've finished reading it, we urge you to print a copy and refer to it at least once a year to refresh your memory on proper maintenance procedures.

We suggest that you keep an accurate service record for your piano. This record should be helpful in keeping your maintenance program up to date and will be invaluable if you should ever decide to sell your piano.

Care of the Piano's Interior

The interior of your piano should be out of bounds to you and your family. Any dealings with your piano's interior should be handled by a qualified piano technician.

Every 2 to 3 years, depending upon the exposure to dust and dirt to which your new piano is subjected, the interior should be cleaned by a professional. If this step is neglected, you run the risk of exposing the piano's complex workings to undue wear at the hands of abrasive dust and dirt particles. If a pencil, coin, hairpin, or foreign object of any kind should fall into your piano it should be removed at once by a professional piano technician. Foreign objects can seriously affect the action and tone of the piano.

Tuning Voicing and Regulating

The design and workmanship which are part of your Steinway piano endow it with extraordinary capabilities as a musical instrument. To get the most out of it, periodic adjustment will be required.

Routine service is part of piano ownership and you should consider it no more unusual than the maintenance program you would have for an automobile, boat, or airplane you might own.

There are three basic steps in maintaining the sound of your piano: tuning, which brings the piano back to pitch: voicing, which affects the piano's tone, or quality of sound: and regulating, which is adjustment of the action mechanism and affects the touch of the piano.

These three steps, tuning, voicing and regulating, are exacting jobs which consumed many weeks during the final stage of building your new piano. They should be performed again at intervals recommended in this section. The three adjustments are customarily performed by the same technician and a brief discussion of each should help you better understand what is needed, when, and why.

Living with Your new Piano

As we have said, common sense is an excellent guide in the care of your new piano. This is especially true when you are choosing the proper site for the piano in your home.

About 70% of your piano is wood, which even though it has been carefully selected and dried, is still "alive," so to speak. It reacts just as your body does to variations in temperature and humidity. Constant fluctuation in either of these variables is definitely bad for your piano's health. And may lead to more frequent servicing. The action regulation, tuning, and voicing will become unstable.

We urge you to adhere to the following recommendations which will help you minimize wear and tear and help you keep your piano in optimum condition.

Don't position it in the path of an air conditioning outlet or a heating outlet.

Don't put it near an evaporator cooler or a room humidifier.

Don't put it close to an uninsulated outside wall.

If you think of yourself rooted to any of these spots and subjected to the changes of temperature and humidity thereabouts, you will be able to imagine what a piano in the same location would have to endure. Pianos placed in such locations cannot be expected to stay in tune and keep their adjustment. More important, the instrument subjected to such environmental insult may be permanently damaged.

Ideally, your new piano should reside in a temperate atmosphere where relative humidity ranges from 45% to 65%. If this is not possible, remember that the idea is to keep environmental factors within a fairly narrow range.

When placing your piano within a room it is important to pick a spot where it will not be hit by direct sunlight. For a Steinway Piano, for example, the exterior of your piano is made of wood from the same tree, carefully stained and color-matched at the Steinway & Sons factory. Exposure to direct sunlight will bleach the wood and ruin the piano's carefully prepared finish.

It is a good idea to place a fairly accurate hygrometer near the piano so you can monitor humidity swings. Room dehumidification, humidification or air-conditioning may be needed to maintain a stable environment. The consideration of these items if necessary far outweigh the increased servicing, which may become necessary if these guidelines are not followed.

Storing and Moving Your Piano

Storing Your Piano
On rare occasions it may be necessary to leave your piano unattended in an unheated house. Should you be faced with this situation, we suggest that you contact your pinao dealer for recommendations on storage preparations in your particular climate.

Moving Your Piano
The cardinal rule of piano-moving is never to try to do it yourself. A professional piano mover should be called for your piano — whether the move is up or down stairs or to a new home.

A piano is both heavy and delicately balanced. It simply cannot be regarded as another large piece of furniture. Only professional piano movers have the specialized skills, equipment and experience to do this job.

We recommend that you contact your piano dealer for the name of a good piano mover in your area. Your dealer can also help should you need to know the shipping volume or weight of your piano.