What to check at a used piano viewing in Singapore.

Before you leave the house

Five minutes of preparation.

A viewing goes better when you arrive with four things: the measurements of the room and the route into it, two or three pieces you can play from memory, a phone with a torch, and the exact model and serial number of the instrument you are going to see. Ask for the model and serial number in advance. It takes the seller a minute to send and it lets you check the year before you travel.

If a teacher is involved, bring them. Touch and tone are matters of taste, and the person who will set the exercises has the most useful taste in the room.

Then set aside 45 minutes for the instrument itself. Here is how to spend them.

Minutes 0 to 10

What to play.

Start with a slow chromatic run from the lowest A to the top C, one key at a time, at a steady medium volume. You are not performing; you are checking that all 88 keys sound, that none of them sticks or returns slowly, and that the volume does not jump between neighbouring notes. Then do the same run as softly as you can. A key that will not speak quietly is telling you something about the action.

Play your own pieces next, the ones you know well enough to listen rather than read. Play one passage very softly, then as loudly as you would ever play it. A good instrument keeps its tone at both ends. Then:

• Repeated notes on a single key, as fast as you can. The note should repeat cleanly without the key having to come all the way up.
• Octaves and unisons up and down the keyboard. Each note should sound like one note, not two slightly different ones.
• The sustain pedal held down through a chord. Listen for how long the sound lasts and whether every note stops together when you release it.
• The soft pedal. On a grand the whole action shifts sideways; on an upright the hammers move closer to the strings. Either way the tone should soften, not disappear.
• The middle pedal. On most uprights it drops a felt strip between the hammers and the strings for quiet practice. On many grands it holds only the notes you were already holding. Ask which it is on this piano.

Minutes 10 to 20

What to listen for.

Whether a piano will hold its tuning over a year cannot be heard in one afternoon, and nobody honest will claim otherwise. What can be heard in ten minutes:

• Buzzes and rattles on particular notes played hard. Sometimes it is a loose cabinet part or something resting on the instrument. Sometimes it is a cracked soundboard or a loose rib. Find the note, then find the cause.
• Notes that do not stop after you lift the key, or a sustain pedal that releases unevenly. Both point at the dampers.
• Unisons that waver. Most notes have two or three strings tuned to the same pitch. If they beat against each other the piano is out of tune, which is normal on a used instrument, but ask when it was last tuned and whether it drifted quickly.
• The join between registers. Play across the point where the wound bass strings give way to plain steel. A step in tone there is common; a jump in volume is worth asking about.
• Clicks and knocks from the action as a key returns. They are usually small and fixable, and they belong in the condition note either way.

If two instruments are on the floor, play the same passage on both, back to back, more than once. The second hearing is more reliable than the first.

A method for comparing pianos side by side →

Minutes 20 to 30

What to look at inside.

Ask for the lid to be raised and, on an upright, the top panel and the front board removed. This is where a used piano tells you how it has been kept. The sale page shows the kind of photographs to expect with the case open.

• Hammers. Look at the striking surface from above. Shallow string grooves are normal. Deep grooves, a flattened face, or felt so thin that the wooden core is close to the surface mean the hammers have done many hours and will need reshaping or replacement. Felt that has been filed back many times looks small and sharp rather than rounded. Moth damage shows as ragged edges and loose fibres.
• Strings and tuning pins. Bass strings are copper wound and should look dull brown, not green or pitted. Plain steel strings should be grey, not orange with rust. A few bright new strings among dull ones means replacements, which is fine if declared. Tuning pins should stand at the same height; pins driven much deeper than their neighbours, or rusted, are worth a question.
• The soundboard. On an upright, look at the back; on a grand, look down through the strings and underneath with the torch. You are looking for cracks along the grain, and for the ribs on the back pulling away from the board. See the questions below on what a crack means.
• Bridges. The strips of wood the strings pass over on the soundboard. Splits around the bridge pins are a repair and should be declared.
• Dampers. The felts should be even, seated square on the strings, and should all lift together when the sustain pedal is pressed.
• The action and keys. Keys level, with even depth of travel. Press a few keys slowly and watch the hammer come back: sluggish return is common in Singapore humidity and usually a small adjustment, but a whole section returning slowly is a bigger job.
• Cabinet and finish. Swollen or lifting veneer at the bottom of an upright means water at some point. Chipped key tops, a squeaking pedal and a stiff castor are small. A smell of mould inside the case is not small.

None of this needs a technician’s eye to notice. It needs a torch and a willingness to look.

Minutes 30 to 35

The serial number and the date label.

Age is the first question on a used piano and the easiest to be vague about, and it does not have to be. The serial number is stamped into the iron plate. On an upright it is at the top of the plate, usually to the right near the tuning pins or in the centre, and you can see it with the lid up. On a grand it is on the plate inside, near the tuning pins, and the music desk may need to slide out before you can read it.

Beside it is the model name cast or stamped into the plate. Check that it matches what you were told. A YUS5 and a U1 are both Yamaha uprights and are not the same instrument. The sale page shows what a serial number and a factory date label look like on instruments photographed in the viewing gallery.

Then look it up on the maker’s own page rather than a third party table:

• Yamaha: Finding the age of your Yamaha piano on Yamaha’s own support site, which also shows where the number sits on a grand and on an upright. Yamaha notes that it cannot guarantee the accuracy of its own database for every instrument.
• Kawai: Where is the serial number on my Kawai piano, and how do I determine the year on Kawai’s own support site. Some Kawai instruments also carry a label inside the case with the month, year and country of manufacture. Kawai notes that numbers for different models are not always sequential, so a date from the table is approximate.

Heights for the common uprights, as the makers publish them, are on the models page, with Yamaha’s U series page as the source. Useful if the room is tight.

Minutes 35 to 40

What to ask.

Short questions, and listen for whether the answers are specific.

• Where did it come from? A home, a school, a studio or a teaching room. Hours of use matter more than years of age, and a studio instrument has usually done far more of them.
• When was it last tuned, and did it hold? A recent tuning that has already drifted is a different answer from one that has held for months.
• Has it been regulated, and when? Regulation is the adjustment of the action so every key behaves the same. It is routine maintenance, and the date tells you something.
• What parts have been replaced? Hammers, strings, tuning pins, key tops. Replacement is not a fault. Undeclared replacement is.
• Has it ever been rebuilt or reconditioned? A rebuilt instrument is a different purchase from an original one and should be priced as one. The condition terms guide explains the difference, and the sale page sets out what Music Companion states about its own sourcing.
• What work was done before it went on the floor, and what is still outstanding? Both halves of the question.
• Where did it stand? Against an outside wall, under a window, in the path of an air conditioner. Singapore humidity is hard on pianos and the previous room is part of the history.
• What will be in writing? The sale page lists six things worth having confirmed in the quotation: the exact instrument by serial and year, its condition today, the price of the instrument on its own, delivery, the first tuning, and what is covered afterwards. Ask for all six, here or anywhere else you shop.
• Can an independent technician look at it before I pay? If you want one, ask whether and when that can be arranged.

Minutes 40 to 45

What to photograph.

Your phone is the most useful tool you brought. Take more than you think you need.

• The plate: serial number and model name, close enough to read.
• The factory label inside the case, if there is one.
• The hammers from above, with the torch on, so the grooves show.
• Strings and tuning pins, bass and treble.
• The soundboard, from the back of an upright or through the strings of a grand.
• The cabinet: every mark, scratch or lifted edge, so that what arrives matches what you saw.
• Pedals and castors.
• A short video of the slow run across the keyboard, with the sound on, and one of the passage you played on both instruments if you compared two.

The photographs do two jobs. They let you compare instruments at home, away from the gallery lighting, and on delivery day they let you confirm the piano that arrives is the piano you chose, serial number included.

After the viewing

Delivery, placement and the first tuning.

The narrowest point on the route decides the delivery, not the distance: the lift door, a turn on a landing, a threshold, a gate. Measure them before you agree a date, and send the floor and the access at your address with the enquiry. The sale page explains how a delivery is surveyed and carried out, including the crane lift when stairs will not take a grand.

Decide where it will stand before it arrives. Away from direct sun, out of the stream of an air conditioner, not against a wall that gets wet. Ask the technician when this piano should be assessed and tuned after delivery, taking its condition and the new room into account. Ask whether that tuning is part of the quotation or billed separately, and get the answer in writing with the rest.

Then book the viewing. Book a viewing at IMM and say which instrument you want ready when you arrive.