I’m constantly updating this list of piano resources based on the excited reviews my customers give me. This list is under continuous construction, and please reach out to me if you would like to add your favorite resource! See my contact page.
Piano teachers
If you’re looking for a piano teacher, check out my Piano Lessons page for a list of teachers in Maine. I do my very best to maintain a comprehensive list!
Customers regularly ask me for local piano teachers. If you are a local piano teacher, please reach out to me and I’ll be happy to talk to you. If you have an excellent piano teacher that isn’t on my list, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
There are two well-established piano moving companies here in Southern Maine: The Piano Movers of Maine (207-939-3018) and Starbird Piano (207-775-2733), both of which are based in Portland. Both, in my experience, are willing to travel pretty far.
Pricing for piano moving is quite variable, and you should have the following information ready: The location the piano is moving from and to; The number of steps at both locations; The size of the piano (length for a grand or height for an upright).
If you need an especially long-distance move between states, reach out to Piano Movers Inc. They service all of New England, and come highly recommended as they’re the movers used by the former Londonderry Piano in New Hampshire.
The first place I recommend is The Bluebook of Pianos Piano Age directory. It’s free, and they have the most common makes (like Baldwin, Wurlitzer, Yamaha, and Steinway); however, many of the smaller manufacturers are missing.
I can look up the piano age in the Pierce Piano Atlas if I have the serial number and make. For that, you can contact me directly. Email me at [email protected] or use the contact page. I’m always happy to provide this service.
The Piano World forum
The Piano World forum was started by Frank Baxter, also of the great state of Maine! It’s now the premier forum for piano owners and piano technicians. It’s filled with valuable information, and the forum is still very active if you have any questions!
Piano accessories
Dampp-Chaser Pads and Treatment can be purchased on Amazon (pads and treatment), they can be purchased at Starbird Piano in Portland, or you can ask me to bring them to your next tuning! Pads are free for regular customers, and my treatment prices are lower than Amazon’s. Please see my Dampp-Chaser FAQ for more information.
Looking for a piano light? There are quite a few on the market, but I have had customers repeatedly recommend the Stella-Pro Light. The light clips on top of your music rack whether on a grand piano or an upright, but it’s also capable of standing upright on its own if you don’t have a suitable place to clip it.
If you are looking for resources for cleaning your piano, see my Cleaning FAQs.
Piano sales
Starbird Piano in Portland is a Yamaha dealership, and is the only piano store in Southern Maine. They sell pianos on consignment. They use their own, in-house movers.
M Steinert & Sons in Boston is our nearest Steinway and Boston dealership. They also use Piano Mover’s Inc, and ship to Maine regularly. They have an outstanding reputation throughout the country.
Cunningham Piano is located in Philadelphia, but it’s home to some of the best piano rebuilders in the country, and a number of my customers have pianos purchased or rebuilt by them. They orchestrate shipping to and from Maine through a variety of movers.
Homeschooling Groups
I’ve worked with a number of members of Homeschoolers of Maine, who can help with events, group classes, curriculum, and the technical/legal aspects of homeschooling your kids.
Carefully! My favorite key cleaning solution is Cory Key-Brite, which is available on Amazon. It can also be purchased at Starbird Piano in Portland or through me. Lacking this, the actual key tops can be cleaned with a damp cloth. Just make sure that the cloth is well wrung out: Keys are very sensitive to moisture and will warp easily.
Another good product is MusicNomad’s Key One Cleaner, also available on Amazon. I use Cory Key-Brite when doing detail work, but Key One is also a suitable option if you’re wiping down your keys on a more regular basis. (With Cory you can expect to do a little more scrubbing, whereas Key One is thinner and behaves a bit more like Windex.)
How do I clean the rest of the piano?
Microfiber cloths dust off the outside of the piano effectively. If you have a high-gloss piano, it is worth investing in Cory Super Gloss Polish, which can also be purchased at Starbird Piano in Portland or through me. Cleaning underneath the strings and cast iron plate of a grand piano is an involved process, generally taking hours. This is a service I provide; however, if it is something you are interested in doing yourself, or you are located outside my service area, consider purchasing piano cleaning tools:
Spurlock Tool’s “Squeegee Type” Soundboard Cleaner is a very professional tool costing about $100. It will give you excellent and reliable results, without having to remove the lid of the piano. I especially recommend these tools if you have a venue or other location where cleaning is important and routine.
Soundboard steels are inexpensive, but they are a labor-intensive option that will require removing the lid of the piano for convenient access. If you have patience, this is an inexpensive solution.
My piano smells awful! What can I do?
The folk remedy for piano odor, which I learned working on consignments at Starbird Music, is to put dryer sheets inside the piano. This is pretty effective for dealing with minor smoke odor. However, with any strong, offensive smell, it’s essential to find the source of the problem. Over the years, I’ve seen many pianos devastated by moths, mold, and mice. If you believe your piano has fallen victim to any of these, it needs a thorough and professional cleaning as soon as possible.
Often, in cases of serious mold, I will clean the piano out and then install a Dampp-Chaser dehumidifier system inside the piano to make sure the issue doesn’t return.
Recently, I’ve been tenting and ionizing pianos. In extreme cases, such as very moldy pianos in homes where residents have mold allergies, this can be a very effective technique. See “Can you clean out smoke, mold, and bad smells with an ozone generator?” below.
What can I do about mold?
Mold invades the felt and wood inside the piano. It can be extremely difficult to remove in older pianos where it has been allowed to flourish. Newer pianos are generally chemically treated, and mold invasions tend to be smaller in scale. In any mold invasion, the entire piano should be professionally cleaned and treated, with the action and keys removed.
Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant
If possible, the piano should be left disassembled and placed in direct sunlight for several days to kill the remaining mold. Direct sunlight dries things out, and the ultraviolet light is lethal to the mold.
Clean with Hydrogen Peroxide
I’ve found 12% hydrogen peroxide to be an optimal cleaner. I purchase 1-gallon containers of 12% peroxide. This peroxide is devastating to mold, but needs to be handled with gloves, safety glasses, and caution. In addition to being highly effective against mold, peroxide ultimately leaves behind nothing but oxygen, which makes it uniquely clean.
Most studies I’ve seen imply that returns rapidly diminish after a 10% concentration, so purchasing higher concentrations of peroxide simply endangers the user without more effectively killing more mold.
Install a Dehumidifier
If you have mold, a dehumidification system must be installed directly inside the piano. You can either install an entire Dampp-Chaser® Piano Life Saver System, which both keeps the piano dehumidified and humidified when the weather is dry. Or you can install their dehumidifier only system. The dehumidifier is all that’s necessary for controlling mold.
These work very well. They keep the relative humidity too low for mold to grow, and so provide a longer-term solution.
Finally, consider a humidity monitor. This is a tiny sensor installed inside the piano, which will operate on battery power, and will set off an alarm (in the form of an email or text message) if the relative humidity clears a certain threshold (such as 50%). You’ll get an immediate alert if there’s the potential for mold to grow inside the cabinet, and can correct it quickly. Most likely, this would happen if the dehumidifier were unplugged.
This device allows us to trust that the dehumidifier is operating as intended. This is important, since you can’t actually see or hear the device, people might accidentally unplug it, and so forth.
Can you clean out smoke, mold, and bad smells with an ozone generator?
In severe cases, I ionize the piano. Starting about a year ago, at the recommendation of a favorite eccentric customer, I made my first trial of ionizing a piano—or filling it with ozone gas. I tent the piano and place it with an industrial ionizer.
For this, I use an ozone generator that provides at least 10,000 mg/h of ozone (such as the Enerzen O-555).
Ozone is very harmful to organic substances, so it’s best not to overdo it. You want to make certain you use enough to kill the invading mold, but not so much that items in the household start degrading. In particular, plastic and rubber will off-gas rather unpleasantly. You may have to replace rubber components inside the piano (notably the pedal attachments) sooner after this treatment.
Follow the protocol described above, drying out and cleaning the piano as thoroughly as possible. Then you can ionize the instrument.
Running the Ionizer
During the ionization process, all living things must leave the home. Even houseplants should ideally be moved away from the generator. Ozone gas is irritating to lungs. In terms of the chemical effects, it’s similar to breathing ultraviolet light (if somebody could do such a thing). However, as ozone reacts with biological substances, it degrades into oxygen, which is harmless. Once the ozone generator has finished its cycle, leave the house unoccupied for at least an equivalent period of time (six further hours if you ran it for six hours) with, ideally, the windows open.
What about mice?
Signs of mouse damage in upright.
Mice can do colossal damage, but seldom do in newer pianos because of their chemical mold treatments. In older pianos, if the colony nests inside the piano, the damage can be devastating.
The initial response is a total cleaning and an evaluation of the damage to moving parts. Additionally, mouse urine can cause warping, sticking keys, and mold. Once all visible evidence is removed and parts are replaced, there are two possible forms of prevention.
Treating the house for mice is ideal. However, this isn’t possible, the piano interior can be thoroughly scrubbed with a solution containing peppermint oil, and a saturated cloth left in the bottom. Another highly rated chemical repellent is Grandpa Gus’s Mouse Repellent. Any visible openings can then be covered with steel exclusion fabric.
Some customers use ultrasonic rodent repellent, but I have none of that I can recommend at this time. They do not seem to be effective as a long-term solution.
Can I polish the strings?
Sometimes, piano dealers polish the strings using 3M pads and steel wool. This can only be done to treble strings, not copper-wound bass strings, and will almost certainly throw the piano out of tune. If your strings are regularly breaking or are severely rusty, it might be worth considering having your piano restrung by a rebuilder.
