All About Piano Maintenance

Your piano needs regular maintenance, just like oil changes for a car, or teeth cleanings. This is the case whether you currently play your piano. After several years, your piano will need additional work, like replacing brake pads and air filters. Some parts just wear down over time from humidity changes, usage, and even gravity. This article covers the regular maintenance you should perform during the calendar year, as well as periodic maintenance.

Regular Maintenance

At the very least, you should have your piano serviced once per year for cleaning, to keep the pitch in the realm of playable, and to inspect for budding problems.

Tune Twice a Year

On the one hand, we are blessed with beautiful seasons in the DMV region. Unfortunately, pianos do not share our enjoyment of seasonal changes. The variations in temperature and humidity cause the piano to incur wear and tear, of which one symptom is tuning instability. It depends on your space and needs, but in the DMV region, you probably need at least two tunings a year. Fewer than two, and your piano will nearly always be out of tune and/or off-pitch (meaning the entire piano is consistently flat or sharp).

Out-of-Tune versus Off-Pitch

A piano is out-of-tune if the relationships between notes sound bad. Do the octaves and fifths generally sound nice? If not, the piano is probably out of tune. A piano is off-pitch if the relationships between notes sound okay, but the entire piano is wholly flat or sharp. More serious musicians might argue off-pitch is also out-of-tune, and I would agree with them. If you are playing the piano in an ensemble, or with a recording, the piano should not be off-pitch. A piano that is both out-of-tune and off-pitch may require additional tunings to bring it up-to-pitch and stable.

Cleaning

Even if you aren't playing your piano, it should be cleaned once a year. One of the best things you can do for your piano is have the dust, rust, cat hair, mice, all that debris removed once a year. Dust carries moisture to every little crevice, which gums up action parts, causes rust on the strings and pins, and ultimately leads to more expensive repairs. It's like a car engine. Or your teeth. Without regular cleaning, you have problems.

Cyclical / Periodic Maintenance

Over time, factors such as humidity fluctuations, usage, and gravity will cause wear to the action parts, as they are made of wood, felt, and steel. These fluctuations may cause misalignment of action parts by as little as a millimeter, but even these small changes may cause a severe decline in performance. While some misalignment can be addressed during standard tuning services, many changes need more extensive work to bring a piano back to its maximum potential.

Regulation

A regulation reconditions action parts and brings them into alignment, returning the piano to manufacturer specifications so it may perform up to its maximum potential. This service includes refreshing worn components (felts, leathers, steel pins), deeper cleaning, and action calibration. Moderately used pianos will need some form of regulation every few years.

Without regulation, your piano will perform like a lower quality piano. A $20k piano will perform more like a $4-6k piano. Your student will not access the highest levels as they will lack the tools to support that level.

Voicing

Voicing is usually a part of regulation, but it is also a distinct service that addresses a piano’s sound quality. For example, hammer felt might be reshaped, hardened, or softened, giving the tone more vibrancy, consistency, etc. You might need voicing if the tone sounds dead, piercingly loud, uneven, or otherwise diminished.

In Summary

Most moderately used pianos need maintenance 1-4 times a year. If you’re not really playing right now, you should at least have it maintained once a year. It's like an oil change. Or your teeth. Without service, not only will it’s performance and sound suffer, you jeopardize it's condition and resale value. Like your car. Finally, any player learning on a piano insufficiently maintained will probably not reach their full potential or enjoy it as much. Like your teeth.