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My kid's Science experiment got me to wondering about cleaning the keys.

Their assignment was to swab various items in their "world" and incubate the bacteria in a petri dish. The keys on the piano grew much more than the cat box! The germaphobe in me is having a panic attack. I clean before and after lessons. I have students wash or use sanitizer before lessons. Goodness!

How often do you clean? With what?

Can you see I'm questioning myself at the moment?

NMKeys,

I don't often think of cleaning the keys unless a student has been in there coughing etc. I may start wiping the keys weekly. I have cleaner and cloth from a kit I bought from the piano dealer. Need to remember to use it.

I wash my hands after I play piano. (And I do the same after cleaning the cat box.)

Heh... My studio is a personal one and not for students (it's a semi-commercial studio for production) and don't exactly clean too much...

... and the moral of the story is, don't incubate bacteria in a petri dish.

I do clean my keys every few days, as the sweat on them makes me skid around.

I make all students wash their hands before their lesson, and I have hand sanitizer in my studio as well. I clean my pianos weekly.

For the "germy" kids, I wipe down the keys before the next student shows up. I would also inform the next student to wash their hands before and after the lesson.

Unfortunately, there isn't a good solution to wiping piano keys, as you're not supposed to wipe them with anything other than a slightly damp towel.

I wipe down the keys at the end of each teaching day. (I teach 2 days/week)

I use those clorox wipe things -- hopefully this isn't damaging the keys.

Wow, I'm starting to think I'm a total slob and oblivious to the onslaught of germs all around me! I whizz the vacuum cleaner over the studio once in a while, flip a duster over things in between, and only touch the keys with a slightly damp cloth if there's a visible mark on them. I wash my hands fairly often, and more so in flu season, but that's about it.

I used to work with a Head Start teacher who did a bunch of petri dishes for her class every year. The kids' fingers were always by far the most diverse source. Think of where all those little fingers go!

I wonder why the assignment never has the kids measure people's immune systems. The problem with becoming paranoid is that you will not be able to touch a door knob,car door handle,any computer keyboards, or even cash.I notice Oprah had these type of freak-out shows in which they incubated bugs from a dish sponge. But the purpose of the sponge is to remove stuff with dish soap. The rinse is essential to the final cleanliness of the dish. So why focus on the sponge?

As I understand the latest thinking in medical science, an ultra clean environment is actually a bad thing for humans. We were apparently designed to have to cope with an onslaught of germs in order that our immune systems become robust. With that thought in mind, I've backed off of being super clean and now just clean the studio weekly, except in case of a super ill student who shows up, in which case, I do wipe down the keyboard with glassplus, which is an ammonia based cleaning product here in the USA.

I just glanced at the heading of this thread, and I thought it was about vacuuming and general tidying up. I'm doing that constantly in my studio. Putting away music. Dusting. Straightening furniture. Cleaning my desk enough to see the surface.

But actually wiping down the piano keys in honor of germs? Unfortunately the word "seldom" comes to mind. (Cough, cough.)

Ooo, glad it's not just me!

(My music is pretty tidy, however. It's got to be or I'll never find anything, I have So Much...)

To be honest, I wipe down the keys because they feel sticky, not because of germs . I tend to do my practicing after I'm done teaching for the day, and the keys always feel funny to me unless I wipe them down.

heh... My everything is tidy... in my head. I can drive EVERYONE nuts, but unless I'm under extreme pressure and anxiety I never lose stuff. Not keys, or mobile phone, or anything.

And my books and papers and notes and drafts are tidy in their own way.

I also don't use an organiser, but this is turning into a nightmare, since I'm constantly getting more and more admin work to do and my mind can't keep up anymore!

I'm a rather lazy key cleaner after my students, if I do, it's mostly because the keys are sticky - concerning germs, I believe in the human immune system ... Although it seems to me that the modern plastic keys don't get as sticky as ivory keys, which I personally prefer for playing concerts. Since I once almost got stuck on the keys in the scales of Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio, because the dirt on the keyboard became sticky from the extreme heat in the concert hall, I always clean the keyboard before concerts.