Keeping Your Piano Clean and Healthy

An important rule to remember, whether you’re playing an acoustic or electronic piano: never allow yourself or anybody else to have food or drink around your keyboard. Drink spilled onto an electric keyboard is very likely to cause damage, and is also dangerous if the instrument is switched on! An acoustic piano is also very vulnerable to damage in this way, as it has many delicate moving parts and mechanisms inside. Don’t even think about it!

Many acoustic piano owners use a feather duster to dust the piano keys and other parts. Periodically you’ll want to get in between the keys to clean a little more thoroughly, which is ideally done with a small paintbrush (one that hasn’t been used for painting!). When cleaning the wood surface, you can use a soft damp cloth, or a cleaner that is recommended by your piano dealer. In our house we use a Mirror Glaze™ finish enhancer on our Young Chang grand piano, with good results. I’ve always used Windex™ or a similar glass cleaner on my electronic keyboards (while they are turned off of course!) and this has worked fine.

Don’t use regular furniture polish on your grand piano. This can ruin the finish!

Periodically your acoustic piano will also need to be tuned. This is done normally after the piano has been moved, and on average every 6–12 months afterwards. If your piano also doubles as a “studio” piano, you’ll normally get it tuned at the beginning of each recording session.

Unless you are one of the small handful of pianists who are also expert tuners, always get a professional tuner to tune your piano, rather than tinker with it yourself. There are lots of good technical reasons for this… just take my word for it!

A piano tuning will generally last a couple of hours or so, and will cost around $70–$100 for a good technician. If you don’t know any piano tuners, I suggest you get a recommendation from your teacher or local music store. Playing your piano right after it has been tuned by an expert will be a sheer delight, and well worth the cost!

If you need to get an instrument repaired (whether acoustic piano or electronic keyboard), again it’s always best to use a professional technician. If you’re buying a new instrument, hopefully you shouldn’t have to worry about repairs for a while! If buying used, however, this situation is more likely to come up (sort of like with cars!). On acoustic pianos, you may get problems such as broken strings, broken hammers or dampers, or even a broken soundboard if the piano is not moved properly or has been exposed to humidity changes. On electronic keyboards, you may get problems such as the unit not powering on, distorted sound, no sound at all, LCD not working or showing gibberish, keys or buttons getting stuck, and so on. If you don’t know a qualified technician or repair center, you can inquire at your music store or dealer, or directly with the manufacturer. Most professional-level keyboards these days are pretty sturdy, and should work hassle-free for a long time, provided they are not abused!