All About Piano Maintenance

In order to understand piano maintenance, let’s start with comparing against products more people have experience with, 1) cars and 2) teeth.

Pianos are a lot like cars and teeth in regards to care and maintenance. Your piano needs regular tunings and maintenance, just like oil changes for a car, or teeth cleanings. This is the case whether you currently play your piano or not. After several years, your piano will need additional periodic maintenance, like replacing brake pads and tires in a car, or crowns and cavities in teeth. Some parts just wear down over time from variations in temperature and humidity (hello there, seasons), usage, and even gravity. This article covers the regular maintenance you should perform on a piano during the calendar year, as well as periodic maintenance.

Regular Maintenance

Plan to have a piano technician service your piano at least 1-2 times per year. At the very least, you should have your piano serviced once per year for keeping the pitch in the ballpark, cleaning, and checking 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. In the DMV region, annually our magic number is “2”: two tunings, two oil changes, two teeth cleanings. Fewer than two, and your piano will nearly always be out of tune and/or off-pitch (clarified below). You might need tunings more or less frequently depending on our piano, space, and needs.

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 likely 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 a pitch correction — or 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 droppings…have 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 keys and action parts, as they are made of wood, felt, and steel. The subtle changes may cause misalignment of action parts by as little as a millimeter, but that can be enough to 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. Back to our analogies, periodic piano maintenance might compare to changing the brake pads in a car, or drilling a tooth cavity.

Regulation

A regulation reconditions action parts and brings them into alignment, returning the piano to manufacturer specifications so it may once again perform at 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 have regular access the highest performing levels as the piano will lack the capability to support that level. The sports car just doesn’t drive as well when the tires have no treads.

Voicing

Voicing is usually a part of regulation, but it is also a distinct service that addresses a piano’s sound quality. During voicing, hammer felt might be reshaped, hardened, or softened, giving the tone more vibrancy, consistency, etc. You might need voicing if the tone sounds dead, harsh, 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. Without service, not only will the piano’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.