Your piano is an investment in your future. It can bring you and your family a lifetime of music, adding immeasurable joy and beauty to your home. Since it is also such a large investment, it should be maintained with the utmost care. Regular servicing by a qualified technician will preserve your instrument and help you avoid costly repairs in the future. Because your piano contains materials such as wood and felt, it is subject to change with climatic conditions. Extreme swings from hot to cold or dry to wet cause its materials to swell and contract, affecting tone, pitch, and action response or touch. You can reduce the severity of these effects by placing your piano near a wall away from windows or doors that are opened frequently. Avoid heating and air conditioning vents, fireplaces and areas which receive direct sunlight. Your piano will perform best under consistent conditions neither too wet nor dry, optimally at a temperature of 68 degrees F and 42 percent relative humidity.
While pianos generally fall into vertical and grand model categories, each manufacturer selects its own materials and utilizes its own unique scale and furniture designs. Every piano requires a different level of maintenance, depending upon the quality of materials used and the design and level of craftsmanship. Manufacturers can provide general advice on tuning frequency but your technician can give specific recommendations based upon your usage and locale. Here's what some of the major piano manufacturers recommend:
Baldwin Piano Company (also Chickering, Wurlitzer)
Professional service is the key. In the first year, the National Piano Manufacturers Association recommends that you have your piano tuned four times. This is a period of environmental adjustment for a new instrument, and proper attention is important.
Ten Good Reasons for Routine Piano Service
While pianos generally fall into vertical and grand model categories, each manufacturer selects its own materials and utilizes its own unique scale and furniture designs. Every piano requires a different level of maintenance, depending upon the quality of materials used and the design and level of craftsmanship. Manufacturers can provide general advice on tuning frequency but your technician can give specific recommendations based upon your usage and locale. Here's what some of the major piano manufacturers recommend:
Baldwin Piano Company (also Chickering, Wurlitzer)
Professional service is the key. In the first year, the National Piano Manufacturers Association recommends that you have your piano tuned four times. This is a period of environmental adjustment for a new instrument, and proper attention is important.
Ten Good Reasons for Routine Piano Service
- Swelling of wood parts with seasonal humidity changes forces pianos out of tune. Bridges, soundboards, and frame absorb water from the air or lose water to the air.
- Continuous usage, age and wear alter piano regulation.
What is regulation (click here)?
- Warranty problems can be identified early and dealt with more effectively.
- Extended time between tunings necessitates pitch raises. Aging or mildly rusted strings can break with pitch raises.
- Regular service maintains piano value since records can be shown to prospective buyers. We provide records of service to be kept with the piano.
- Structual tensions were designed for pitch at A440 Hz.
- New piano strings stretch, requiring more frequent tunings early in a piano's life. New pianos go out of tune quickly.
- Young students are more motivated to practice when the piano sounds reasonably like the teacher's instrument.
- Pianos are dust and stuff magnets. They accumulate dust and cobwebs in the cabinet, on the soundboard, and "things" end up under the keys and in the workings. These can occasionally make noise and interfere with function.
- Well-cared for pianos are like well-disciplined children...they bring years of beauty and joy. Happiness is a Bach invention on a great piano.