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by: GrayRollins
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A piano can have up to 12,000 parts and many of those parts are moving parts. If you want your piano to stay in good working order, it needs a little tender loving care now and then.

During your first year of piano ownership you'll probably want to get your piano serviced two to four times. I know that sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that a piano is an investment. This includes having it tuned, regulated, voiced, and getting worn parts replaced or repaired.

A piano has over 200 strings and when the technician starts tuning a piano, it's the strings he's going to work on. The technician wants all the strings to have the correct pitch.

Changes in humidity are the main thing that cause a piano to go out of tune. There's typically a large humidity change in the spring and one again in the fall. Don't have your piano tuned right after a humidity change because it won't hold very long (probably only about two months). Instead wait a month or two after the humidity change to have the tuning done. It will hold longer.

When a piano is regulated, that means that mechanical parts of the piano are being worked on. There are no hard and fast rules to how often a piano needs to be regulated as it depends largely on the climate its being kept in.

When it comes to voicing the piano, we're talking about adjusting the pianos quality of sound or tone. The frequency that voicing needs to be done depends largely on how much you use your piano - 1 to 5 years tends to be the typical range.

You'll also want to make sure you take good care of the exterior of the piano too. Neglecting the exterior of your piano can, believe it or not, affect the sound quality of your piano. Keeping it clean is a pretty simple job, but one thing to remember is that you don't want to use furniture polish.

Reconditioning a piano typically doesn't need to be done very often, but once in a while your piano technician may tell you that the time has come to get the piano reconditioned and certain parts will need to be replaced.

If your piano has deteriorated severely then reconditioning it won't be enough. You'll have to get the piano completely rebuilt which involves completely disassembling the piano. As you might imagine it's very labor intensive and quite expensive, but in some cases it's the only way to restore the original performance level of your piano.

Keep in mind that a piano is an investment, and that a well maintained piano can actually increase in value over its life.

About the Author

Gray Rollins writes for PianosCentral - a site dedicated to helping people learn all about pianos. Come check out Rocket Piano review and the Pure Pitch Method review at his site.

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