Piano Video Lesson: Can You Ruin a Piano's Finish Simply By Touching It?

Hi, this is Robert Estrin here at livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com with a viewer question. Can you destroy the finish of a piano with your hands? Boy, this sounds like kind of a crazy question, but there is some tremendous validity to this and some important things you might want to know.

I'm standing in front of a classic American hand rubbed lacquer finish. These are very popular. Sometimes, you get fingerprints. The fact is this finish is porous, and sometimes you'll get fingerprints and you'll be tempted to use Pledge or some product on it. But, if you do, they will build up over time. It has to be professionally removed.

What can you do about that? Can it actually destroy it? Well, over time, if you don't clean it, yes. How do you clean it? Well, if you use just a soft cotton cloth and rub it, that usually will do the trick. But, if you get embedded fingerprints from the oils of your hands, if you take that same cotton cloth and just have it slightly damp, not wet, and rub always in the direction of the hand rubbed lines, you will see the fingerprints and other markings just eradicated no problem.

Now, we have another type of finish. We have the high gloss finish. When these finishes first came out, people were afraid that they were very, very susceptible to problems. At one of the trade shows when the Asian pianos first started coming out with these types of finishes, they actually lit it on fire and it looked very impressive. Well, can you destroy it with your hands? Actually, they're a sealed finish, it's plastic, so not so much. But, interestingly, if you were to take a music book and the lid was down and you just tossed it on the piano and it kind of swirled a little bit, it will make lines in it that are all but impossible to eradicate.

Each of these finishes is more susceptible to damage in different ways. How do you clean a finish like this? Believe it or not, you can use Windex on it because it's a sealed plastic finish and it won't hurt it. There are products made specifically for the finish, but Windex will not hurt it.

There are other aspects of damaging the piano with your hands. If you ever look at a piano from a very serious pianist who practices a great deal for years and years, you will notice not only marks in the fallboard, which you'll see on all pianos that are played, just from the fingers that hit the fallboard, but you will actually see it gouged out down to the wood. My father's pianos, he has a Steinway that his father gave him in 1939 that my sister now has, and you could see it's completely gouged out to the wood, and also his 1972 Baldwin SF10 you can see into the wood.

You might think... Every time I talk to a pianist about this, they go well my hands never hit the fallboard. Well, they actually do. Unless you're the most elementary player, you don't realize it, but your fingers are always hitting the fallboard. Go take a look at your piano. Catch the light the right way, and you will at least see lines on the fallboard from where your fingers or your fingernails hit them. That is one way your hands will damage your piano over time if you're a serious player. But, it's not such a big deal. You can always refinish your fallboard if it gets to be kind of an eyesore for you.

That's the long and the short of it. Each finish, the satin finish and the polyester finish, has its advantages and its challenges. The best thing to do is to not touch your piano so much around... You know, people are visiting you, and they're leaning on the piano all over the place. Realize that it's a real pain, particularly with a satin finish, to clean all that up. So, it's best to kind of restrict your touching of the piano to the keys, and you should be just fine.

Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com.

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