How do you clean the piano keys? And inside?

[manugarciac]

Mine has got wooden keys covered with ivory. Should I clean them? How frequently? I play every day if that matters.

And what about the inside? Should I clean that? How?

[rachfan]

The best cleaning solution for ivory key tops is warm water on a cloth.  That's it.  If the ivories have turned an orange color, it means that the fallboard was closed over the keys for a very long time.  In that circumstance, they turn orange and there is no remedy that I know of.  Always leave the fallboard up so that the keys are in the light.  

On a grand there are two "insides" as you put it.  One is the area under the lid.  You can gently vacuum with the brush attachment the top of the pinblock, the colored felts under the strings in front of the tuning pins, the wood tops of the dampers (gently!), and any of the accessible parts of the iron plate as well as exposed areas of the soundboard near the edges of the case.

The other concern under the lid is the soundboard.  Never put anything wet or damp on that!  The way I clean it is to use a long, flexible corset bone.  (Where did I get that?  A tuner gave it to me years ago saying he got a supply of them from a nun at a college where he tuned the pianos!)  Anyway, I take a soft, dry undershirt and push it carefully under the strings on the hinge side of the lid.  During the process getting the shirt way over to the curved side of the case, sometimes I have to put the corset bone BETWEEN two notes, that is between two bass copper wound strings, two pairs of bass copper duplex strings (not between the two strings comprising the duplex), or between two pairs of triplex in the treble (not between two strings within a triplex) to continue moving the cloth.  The reason is that there is more maneuvering space there so you won't be stressing strings. Then once done, I extract the cloth the same way I got it in there.

Finally, there is another inside area--inside the case.  To get in there, take out the two screws holding in the cheek blocks at either side of the keyboard.  Note how the front edge of the piano action is aligned in the case.  Then very carefully and slowly pull out the piano action making very sure that in the process you are NOT depressing keys (unless you want to snap off a hammer or two).  Carry the action away from the piano and set it down elsewhere (be advised, it's heavy!).  Use your vacuum cleaner with the brush attachment again to clean out the entire inside of the cabinet there.  When putting the action back it, carefully is the byword.  Line the front edge up the way you noted it when removing it.  Put back the cheek blocks and tighten their screws to lock the keyboard in place.
Your tech might be able to recommend an implement for this purpose that is more modern than what I use.

There is another area to clean--under the keys.  This will be too complicated, as it involves taking out and putting back all the keys.  Even though they're sequentially numbered, I don't recommend your doing this.  If the day comes when you need to replace key punchings (the felt pad under each key), and the tech has all the keys out, that's the perfect time to break out the vacuum cleaner.