Sticking Keys

I had to call the tuner out again this week … even though it was only about a month since he gave our piano a full tuning.

This was a new problem – sticking keys. Several of my pupils had been complaining that when they played a note they couldn’t play it again straight afterwards as it hadn’t fully come up. However, this didn’t happen all the time and I was dreading the tuner arriving and not being able to show him which ones were sticking.

Fortunately, he was able to quickly identify the culprits – mainly the keys in the lower register which are rarely played. He said the problem was with the keys itself – not the action – a fact which he was able to demonstrate when he lifted the lid. By placing his foot on the sustaining pedal, he singled out the sticking keys even more clearly.

I couldn’t tell you exactly how he solved the problem as I went away and left him to it – but I think he removed each key and fiddled about a bit flattening the felt underneath.

He said one of the main causes of sticking keys is damp. As the room our piano is in (now our dining room) – used to be a garage at one time, this doesn’t surprise me. His suggestion to prevent the situation occurring again was to buy packs of silica gel (the stuff which comes in little sachets when you buy electrical goods) and put one each side inside the base of the piano.

I have ordered two large packs of the stuff and hope this does the trick.