joyice
5 Answers
country bumpkin
#4. Where's the best place to put a piano?
I don't have a "best place" suggestion, but I've made some observations about where NOT to put a piano:
1. Upright pianos placed over the furnace's cold air return become very dirty inside. The piano becomes a very expensive air filter.
2. Pianos that are colder than the room they are in will have big problems. This situation occurs when the heat of the piano is drawn away by cold basement floors or UNINSULATED outside walls. Since moisture in the air condenses on colder objects, the piano will become damp. This means the strings will become rusty and the felt will become moldy. Once I serviced a piano that was resting against a cold, poorly insulated (masonry) wall. The room was very humid because people were cooking in the kitchen. Water was literally dripping off the tuning pins. The heavily rusted strings were untunable.
3. Direct sunlight can discolor plastic keys, damage the cabinet's finish, and its heat can cause a temporary pitch drop. When I tune the pianos for the annual St. Louis Jazz Festival (outdoors in Shaw Park), the sun inevitably shines on the pianos after I've tuned them, making them sound worse than before I tuned them! (It's an embarassing and unfair situation that I always complain about – even now.)
4. Pianos placed near a heat vent or radiator will constantly be expanding and contracting with the temperature and humidity changes. This doesn't make for a very stable tuning, and it might eventually cause problems like glue joint failures.
5. It's seems such a romantic picture: the pianist sitting at the piano, dazing out of the window in deep, beautiful, musical thought. Ha! In real life the opposite is true. It is VERY uncomfortable to read music when the piano is in front of a window. It puts the music in constant shadow and makes music-reading very tiring. Also, any car or bird that passes becomes a distraction. I still remember looking out the window while practicing the piano, crying because my friends were out in the street playing ball. If the piano has to be near a window, the window should be BEHIND the pianist (in my unromantic, killjoy opinion).
6. Keep pianos out of areas that have mice. Mice love pianos and can absolutely destroy them in no time.
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| 10 years ago. Rating: 5 | |
bustieone
If too hot, the sound board will warp, and then the piano is worthless...
| 10 years ago. Rating: 5 | |
Vinny
being that I am in the piano bsiness for over 30 years, I feel that I can respectfully answer your question with--- Almost everyone's suggestions to you here are correct.
although, it really depends on the age of your piano, the information provided above is accurate but very-very dated. Modern pianos are built different, they use resins instead of organic glues, they use polyester finishes rather than lacquer, varnish over wood and soundboards are sealed with synthetic resins so that moisture does not enter or exit the wood.
Modern pinblock assemblies are also less plies and resin sealers so that they will hold tune longer. regardless of all these modern manufacturing techniques - it is the 'natre of the beast' to drop tuning over a period of time, there are 20tons of pull on those strings when tuned to A-440 and it doesn't want to stay there.
To summarize, If you have a very old piano, its probably already losing its tone and tune stability, still I would not place it in 'direct sunlight'.
If you have a newer piano, it really doesn't make any difference where you put it, unless you have a wood traditional finish. Never place flowers ontop of any piano. The temptation to water it is a real killer for old pianos.
If you supply me with the name of the piano and its serial number I can tell you a lot about what you have.
| 10 years ago. Rating: 1 | |
whovin
nomdeplume
