 Hi, my name is Jim Porter with Clinton Hill School for Piano in Brooklyn, New York. And I'm here today to talk about how to clean ivory piano keys. Ivory piano keys should not be cleaned with water because over time that makes them yellow. I use rubbing alcohol. I saturate a piece of paper towel with rubbing alcohol and I wipe until the dirt is off. I lightly do the black keys because they aren't ivory, but I do that to clean them and disinfect them. It's a good double purpose because the alcohol disinfects the keys, especially if you're a teacher and you have a lot of different people playing the piano. There are some things that may damage ivory keys. Of course, it's obvious if you hit the keys with anything hard or sharp, it's liable to damage or break them. And you should never lift the edge of the key up. There's no purpose in lifting it except if you want to break the ivory off. You certainly don't want to spill things on them. The lid that goes over the piano keys usually locks. And it's one way to keep people who don't know how to treat a piano from playing the keys. It also keeps dust from getting on the keys, but I'm not so sure you want to leave it like that all the time because I think it's good to have ventilation going through the keys into the inside of the piano. As far as cleaning the rest of the piano, I never use anything but a soft cloth. Now, of course, if you spill something on there that leaves a stain, you're going to need to use something to clean it with. But you should never, ever allow anyone else to put drinks on the piano and you should never set a cigarette on the edge of anything because you'll forget it and it will burn your piano. And people always are knocking drinks in, so that should just be an absolute rigid rule. Nothing that can harm the piano should be put on it, ever.