Questions worth asking before you choose a piano

Begin with the pianist, not the price. A beginner who will practise daily for the next ten years needs a different instrument from an adult returning to music for pleasure. Then consider the room, the level of ambition, and how long the piano is meant to serve.

We never recommend an instrument before hearing how it will be used. Visit either showroom, play several pianos side by side, and let your ear decide. Testing is free and unhurried — there is no obligation, and our consultants are musicians and technicians first.

An acoustic piano makes sound physically: a hammer strikes a string, the string vibrates, and a spruce soundboard turns that vibration into tone. Nothing between the finger and the sound is simulated. That is why touch, dynamics and colour respond so precisely to the player.

A digital piano reproduces recorded sound electronically. It is accessible, needs no tuning, occupies little space and can be played through headphones — genuine advantages for apartments and late-night practice.

The honest distinction is this: a digital instrument teaches a student to press keys; an acoustic instrument teaches a student to listen. Where a serious musical education is intended, we recommend acoustic — and where circumstances require digital, we will help you choose the best one and plan the step up later.

• Tone — does it sing, or merely sound? Listen to a single note fade, not just a chord.
• Touch — the action should respond to the lightest intention and the strongest.
• Evenness — play a slow chromatic scale across all 88 notes. Every note should belong to the same instrument.
• Sustain — hold a note. The longer and more evenly it lasts, the better the soundboard and scaling.
• Build — soundboard, cast-iron frame, pin block, action and hammers determine how the piano will age.
• Provenance and service — who made it, and who will look after it here.

Take your teacher with you if you can. We welcome it, and we will play the instruments for you so you can hear them from the room rather than from the bench.

Longer strings and a larger soundboard produce a fuller, more resonant tone — but a piano too large for its room will overwhelm it, and a piano too small will disappoint. The right answer balances the instrument, the acoustics and the space.

We prepare a floor plan for you, free of charge. Share your room dimensions and our team will show you exactly how each model sits in the space, how it should be oriented for the best sound, and how the lid should open. It takes the guesswork out of a significant decision.

A grand piano contains around 12,000 individual parts, and holds roughly 20 tonnes of combined string tension on a cast-iron frame. Each string is stretched to about 90 kilograms of tension.

The parts that decide how an instrument sounds and feels are few: the soundboard, which turns string vibration into audible tone; the rim and frame, which hold that tension without absorbing energy; the pin block, which must grip the tuning pins for decades; and the action, with wooden components machined to tolerances as fine as 1/100 of a millimetre.

This is why construction is not a detail. It is the difference between an instrument that improves over thirty years and one that declines over five.

Steinway has built pianos since 1853 and holds well over a hundred patents in piano design. Each grand takes close to a year to build, and the rim is bent from a single continuous laminate rather than assembled in sections — a method that keeps the instrument’s energy in the soundboard where it belongs.

The practical evidence is on the concert stage: more than 19 out of 20 concert pianists choose a Steinway when they are free to choose any instrument in the world. No two are identical, which is why we encourage clients to select their own.

House of Pianos is the authorised Steinway & Sons representative for the UAE, with the Steinway Lounge at Dubai Opera Plaza.

Blüthner has been made in Leipzig — the city of Bach, Mendelssohn and Wagner — since 1853, and remains family-owned through six generations. It is the piano Mahler, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky chose.

Its signature is the Aliquot stringing system: in the treble, Blüthner adds a fourth string to each note which is never struck, only allowed to vibrate in sympathy. The result is the warmth and singing resonance the maker calls the golden tone — recognisable within a single note.

House of Pianos is the exclusive Blüthner dealer for the UAE and GCC.

A well-made, well-maintained instrument holds its value in a way few household objects do, and many appreciate. But we would rather you thought of it differently: it is an investment in what happens in your home for the next thirty years, and often in the next generation.

What protects that value is documented care. Consistent tuning, regulation and condition reporting matter at resale as much as service history matters for a fine watch or a collector car.

Most children are ready between five and seven, when the hand has the necessary independence and the attention span allows for short, regular practice. Earlier is possible with the right teacher and a playful approach.

Beginning early matters because the years in which a child learns music are the same years in which the brain is most receptive to pattern, memory and fine motor coordination. Very few pursuits develop concentration, patience and self-discipline as completely.

It matters more at the beginning than at any later stage. A student cannot learn to shape a phrase on an instrument that cannot shape one. If the touch is uneven, the child is taught — silently, every day — that effort and result are unrelated. That is how promising students come to believe they have no ear.

A good instrument does the opposite. It rewards attention, reveals progress, and makes practice something the child wants to return to. This is the single most common regret we hear from parents: not that they spent too much at the start, but that they spent too little and had to replace the piano within two years.

An entry-level instrument from a serious maker is a far better foundation than a large instrument from an unserious one.

For the pianist, a short session every day is worth more than one long session a week. For the instrument, regular playing keeps the action moving freely and reveals small problems before they become large ones — play it at least once a week.

Playing is also good for the player. Studies associate regular playing with lower anxiety, improved concentration and better self-esteem. It is one of the few luxuries that gives something back every day.

The best position is in the centre of the room, or against an interior wall dividing two rooms. An exterior wall exposes the instrument to the temperature swings outside, and both tone and tuning suffer for it.

• Avoid air-conditioning vents, heaters and fireplaces.
• Avoid direct sunlight and large windows.
• Avoid high-traffic doorways.
• Keep the instrument above ground level unless the basement is climate-controlled.
• Allow ventilation on all sides.

Choose a room where the sound distributes evenly. A room where sound gathers in one corner produces echo and lag; the right room lets the instrument bloom.

A piano is mostly wood, felt and cloth. It responds to the air around it every day of its life. The ideal relative humidity is between 50 and 60 percent.

Too much moisture dulls the hammers, muddies the tone, rusts internal parts and causes keys to stick. Too little is worse. In artificially cooled rooms — which describes most homes in the Gulf — wooden and felt components shrink. In severe cases the soundboard and glued joints can separate, and tuning pins loosen until the piano will no longer hold its tuning.

This is why we consider a humidity control system essential rather than optional in this region, particularly for fine instruments living in air-conditioned rooms. Installed inside the piano, it holds the instrument’s own environment steady regardless of what the room does. It is the least expensive protection available for the most expensive component — the soundboard.

Never with household sprays or furniture polish. Silicone-based products bond to a piano’s finish, attract dust and can make later refinishing difficult or impossible. Water and alcohol are equally unkind to a high-gloss polyester.

For daily care, dust with a clean, dry, soft cloth, always in one direction. Keep the keyboard covered when not in use, and close the top board after playing.

For the finish itself we supply House of Pianos Piano Polish, formulated for piano lacquers and high-gloss finishes. It lifts fingerprints and dust without scratching, and leaves the depth of shine the instrument had in the showroom — without the build-up that ordinary polishes leave behind. Available at both showrooms and included in our Standard and Premium care packages.

When a cool room is warmed quickly — or a piano is brought from outside into a chilled room — moisture condenses on the strings and metal parts, and rust begins. Felt absorbs the moisture and the action dulls.

Let the instrument acclimatise gradually, and avoid switching air-conditioning off entirely when the house is empty for long periods. Stability matters more than any particular temperature.

Twice a year is the minimum for a piano in a home. Strings stretch and lose tension with use, and pitch drifts with every change in humidity — an out-of-tune piano does not merely sound wrong, it wears faster.

A new piano should be tuned three to four times in its first year while the strings settle. Instruments used for teaching, in schools, hotels or venues, or for recording and performance need more frequent attention — our commercial packages run from three to six tunings a year.

• Tuning corrects the pitch of every note by adjusting string tension. This is the recurring service.
• Regulation adjusts the mechanical action — key depth, hammer travel, let-off, pedals — so the instrument responds precisely. Needed every one to three years depending on use.
• Voicing shapes tone itself, working on the hammers to brighten, mellow or restore the piano’s original character.

Most owners know only the first. The second and third are what separate a piano that is merely in tune from one that is a pleasure to play.

Because almost everything inside a piano can be made worse by good intentions. A pin turned too far, a hammer filed carelessly, an action regulated by guesswork — these are expensive to undo and sometimes impossible.

A certified technician is trained on the specific instrument, works to the manufacturer’s tolerances, and documents what was done. That record protects your warranty and your resale value.

Our technicians are factory-trained and serve the UAE and the wider GCC. They are the same people who prepare the instruments in our showrooms and on our concert stages.

Yes. Our Annual Maintenance Agreement covers private owners and commercial clients — schools, hotels and venues — across three levels.

• Basic Care — two tunings a year, annual inspection and condition report, priority booking.
• Standard Care — three tunings, full cleaning and polish, annual inspection, light voicing.
• Premium Performance — four tunings, full regulation, exterior and internal cleaning, humidity check, priority booking.

Agreements include a parts and accessories discount, and multi-piano rates for institutions. A condition report each year is worth more than most owners expect — at insurance renewal, and at resale.

It is a system installed within a genuine acoustic piano that reproduces a performance on the instrument itself — real hammers, real strings, real room. Nothing is played through a speaker. The keys move, the pedals move, and what you hear is your own piano performing.

For families it means the instrument is alive even when no one is playing. For hotels, restaurants and residences it means a live piano presence without a pianist on the payroll.

• Steinway Spirio — Steinway’s own high-resolution player system, built into the instrument at the factory. It captures performances by Steinway Artists at a resolution fine enough to reproduce the subtlety of the original.
• Steinway Spirio | r — everything Spirio offers, and recording. Play, capture, edit and play back your own performance on your own piano, exactly as you played it.
• QRS — a versatile player and player-recording system that can be fitted to a wide range of instruments, including our Blüthner Crystal editions.
• PianoDisc — a long-established player system offering broad library access and flexible installation.

In many cases, yes — QRS and PianoDisc are designed for installation into existing acoustic pianos. Spirio and Spirio | r are integral to the Steinway instrument and are specified when the piano is built.

House of Pianos is the exclusive and authorised partner for these systems in the Middle East, and our team installs more than 100 systems each year. Installation is carried out by our own technicians, and the instrument’s touch and tone are preserved.

Instruments in our showrooms can be delivered within days. Anything specified to your requirements is made for you, and that takes time.

A standard order typically requires several months. Special finishes, rare veneers, limited and art-case editions can take more than twelve months from order to delivery — these instruments are built individually, and the makers will not rush them.

Our advice to every client planning around a date — a new home, a birthday, the start of a school year, a concert season — is the same: begin the conversation early. We will tell you honestly what is possible in your timeframe, and what is not.

Yes. We deliver throughout the GCC and export worldwide.

A piano crossing a border must travel in a purpose-built wooden crate. This is not packaging — it is structural protection against impact, vibration, humidity and handling, and it is a customs requirement in most markets, which is why timber must be treated and certified.

House of Pianos builds export crates in-house, to the instrument, with climate protection and correct bracing. It is the difference between a piano that arrives needing a tuning and one that arrives needing a technician.

Yes. Our own crews move grands and uprights across the Emirates using proper piano equipment — skids, boards and spiders — rather than general furniture handling. After any move the instrument should be allowed to settle, then tuned.

Always, and without charge. Visit our showroom in Al Quoz or the Steinway Lounge at Dubai Opera Plaza, bring your teacher, and take as long as you need. We will prepare the instruments you wish to compare, play them for you from across the room, and produce a floor plan for your space.

No one should choose a piano from a photograph.