How To Keep Your Piano in the Best Shape Possible

Your piano's most important function is to provide you with the joy of music-making. Keeping it sounding and feeling its best is easy when you understand what contributes to the tone and touch you love.

Tuning

When the notes you play start to take on a sour tone, your piano likely needs tuning. Various factors interfere with proper string tension that ensures a harmonious sound, including:

• Playing frequently and for sustained periods

• Moving the piano

• Adding new strings

• Frequent or sudden changes in humidity and temperature

Increasing string tension through tuning can restore a harmonious sound. Most pianos require tuning at least twice per year.

Voicing

Over time, the felts of your piano's hammers flatten and become denser and less porous from repeatedly striking the wire strings. As a result, the piano's tone becomes brighter and possibly even strident. A knowledgeable piano technician knows how to open the spaces between the felt fibers with thin needles to restore a warmer tone when hammers and strings meet.

Regulation

It can be disconcerting when your piano does not produce a sound when you depress the keys softly. Needing to exert different degrees of pressure to create a sound up and down the keyboard can also detract from your enjoyment while playing. These issues occur when your piano is out of regulation. Regulating a piano involves a series of steps that allow the hammers to strike the strings at the appropriate angles and ensures that all keys depress the same distance to produce a sound.

Humidity and Temperature Monitoring

It is best to maintain consistent humidity and moderate temperature to ensure your piano's health and longevity. You can do these using dehumidifiers when it is hot and humid and humidifiers when it is cold and dry. These measures can prevent the rapid swelling and contraction of wood that causes sluggish and sticky keys and cracks in wooden parts, including the soundboard. You might also consider asking your piano technician to install a humidity control device like a Dampp-Chaser Piano Life Saver system in your piano to protect the critical soundboard wood.

For more information about the parts of a piano and the importance of protecting them, contact us at info@cantabileharrisonpianos.com.