Care and maintenance of pianos.

Temperature and humidity.

In positioning your piano, you should strive for evenness of humidity and temperature. Since a piano is made mostly of wood, it is greatly affected by seasonal change. If there is lots of variation in humidity and temperature, your piano will easily go out of tune. Humidity fluctuations can also cause cracking of the wooden soundboard and damage to the finish.

For these reasons you should never put a piano next to a frequently opened outside door or in front of a picture window. Never put it near heating ducts, hot air registers, or radiators. Protect the piano against direct sunlight, humidity and sudden changes in temperature. You need to ensure a temperature of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit and a humidity of about 40 percent.

If you can’t control the environment of the house, if you can’t find a suitable location, consider installing a climate control system in the instrument itself. This will take care of climate-related problems.

Tuning

If you prize your piano, you will tune it regularly. Domestic pianos should be tuned roughly once every four to six months. For those playing in concert halls the piano is tuned just before every performance. It is important to tune the piano regularly. The longer a piano remains out of tune, the more time and effort a technician will need to restore correct pitch. When moving the piano to a new environment wait a few weeks for it to become acclimated. Only then should you tune it.

Appearance

Your piano should be cleaned and polished carefully so as to avoid introduction of any fluids into its interior. To avoid the abrasive effect of dust consider using a feather duster rather than a cloth. When a cloth is used it should be soft. You should clean the keys with a sponge dampened with water or a very mild soap. The piano lid should be closed only when necessary. While the lid provides protection when the piano is not in use, it can also lead to yellowing of the white keys.

Piano’s inside

Take proper care of the inside of your piano. Bug sprays and mothballs should not be used. Don’t try to oil it yourself. Don’t place drinks and other liquids like cosmetics, any kind of Aerosol, insecticides, paint thinner or petroleum-based products on top of the piano. They can spill inside and cause metal parts to rust and wood parts to stick. A professional should clean the inside once every three years.

Many problems can be prevented by playing your piano frequently. These include the accumulation of dust and rust.

About the Author
Mantius Cazaubon offers a guide to help you choose a musical keyboard that meets your needs on his site www.Yamaha-Keyboard-Guide.com Visit Yamaha Keyboard Guide.com
for Yamaha and other music keyboard reviews.

If you would like to be a real pianist, a choice of good piano books is really a necessity. You can spend as much time as you want to practicing scales, but it is simply not everything you need to do.. If it’s all you do is practice your scales, you’ll most likely end up being tired with playing piano, and when you get bored, your playing will suffer. By taking advantage of piano books with songs which you like, you can keep playing enjoyable and fun, and that is the highest priority on the list that there is, hands down, to to push you to become a really best of the best musician.

You can find a lot good piano books available, it doesn’t matter what genre of music you are into. Including jazz, rock, pop, folk, andand everything else, there are books on piano available for all styles. Myself, I like to mix it up a fair amount. I buy piano books for each great classical pieces, and then learn to play the music, but sometimes i’d like something a little different. It is good to become capable of playing the songs that your friends know. I mean, why be an entertainer if you can not entertain? So, I make sure to pick up piano books covering all of the most popular songs so that I can take requests whenever I happen to be entertaining. I even own piano books filled with songs that i’m not a fan of.

Of course, after you’ve gone through enough piano books and gone through enough songs, you beging to understand that you do not really must have the music for everything anymore. Once i’d spent many years studying, that magical moment is likely to occur for you, It happened to me when i was able to play any song you’d ever dream of with little effort. You’ll just be able to feel the song you can hear a song once, and can feel the framework of the tune in your brain. Oh, If you want to play it note for note exactly as it has been arranged originally, you will still probably need the piano books, but if you simply wantto be able to play a version of that tune that will have everyone excited to hear that song when the time calls for it, you’ll most likely need nothing but your own wits, and your quick fingers for playing. Then you’ll be able to toss away all of your piano books once and for all.

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Have you ever walked by a piano and wondered “how can anyone make sense of all those keys?” If that’s you, then you’re going to love this.

Listen, 16 years ago I was in the same boat. You see, I was a guitar player and the thought of actually making music at the piano seemed way out there. In fact, the whole idea that anyone could make heads or tales of all those keys always amazed me.

But, I did enjoy the piano - especially the solo piano music of George Winston. I loved his music and wondered if I could create like that. I then started my journey of musical discovery. At that time, it led me to all my local libraries in the city of San Diego. I hit local libraries, college libraries… anywhere there were books on music.

And do you know what I discovered? Very little! That’s right.

There was a pitiful amount of information available on how to improvise and create your own music. Oh, there were books on how to compose. But most of these authors assumed you already knew counterpoint and other higher-level harmony knowledge taught at colleges.

What a disappointment!. But my luck was about to change. Just by chance, I happened upon a very slim volume at San Diego State University. I forget the name of the title (it was a long time ago) but basically, the book showed you how to play chord changes within a given framework. That framework was something called phrases. Four-bar phrases, eight-bar phrases, etc.

Anyway, playing chords within these phrases taught me how to improvise. How? Because it solved the problem of repetition and contrast! I didn’t have to think about when to change chords or where I would be playing them. The chord chart took care of that! Now all I had to do to improvise and create my own music was to come up with chord changes of my own.

Here’s the thing… learning how to play chords is the first step towards creative piano playing. But you also have to know what to do with these chords. The chord chart solves this problem and gives you a template upon which you can chart out your own unique arrangements!

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Stop by now at http://www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html for a FREE piano lesson!