key not working :-(

Hey, new here, I Just bought my first grand piano. Nordhimer baby grand. The middle C seems to be broken or something. When i play it, it goes about half way down and there is no sound. when you look at the hammer you can se it move but not much. Its like there is something stuck.

My moms piano did this when she bought it but the company she bought it from told her to wait and it would probbly go away. and it did. I have had mine for 2 months now and it still does not work. Is there anything I can do? Or should I call a guy?

Hi and welcome here, Matty

I would in any case ask a professional to come have a look at it. Two months is a long time... Although, it depends of course on how often you play on it.

Hi there Matty. I think it's pretty sad that a piano company would tell you to ignore a problem such as this - regardless of the fact that the problem 'went away' - without giving some ideas as to why the problem could exist.

There's a number of factors that could be the cause of the problem. All of these require the piano case to be opened and the action inspected - if you're not confident in doing this yourself, then call a tuner / technician. If you've just had the piano recently delivered, it would benefit from a tune anyway. If you've had it tuned and the tuner ignored the problem, then you probably shouldn't use their services again.

Here's some ideas for you:
* There may be something caught in the action or underneath the key. If the piano is second-hand / used, something may have fallen underneath the keybed (coins, buttons, tokens from children's games) which prevent the key being fully depressed. This is probably the easiest problem to fix.
* The sticker at the base of the key may need adjusting, this connects the key to the wippen. This will probably be the case if the hammer doesn't move immediately on pressing down the key, but a little afterwards.
* The jack may be misfiring or slipping from its place. The key will start the hammer moving, but the hammer will slip downwards again.
* More unlikely, but the key itself may be broken within the casing. This requires the key to be either replaced or glued.

In any case, get someone to look at it, and have the piano tuned at the same time.

Trust this helps.