Adopt a Piano
Showroom opening hours:
Weekdays: by appointment
Saturdays: 11am to 4pm
Choose a lifetime of carbon free entertainment.
Playing music has a multitude of benefits, from mental health to fine motor skills, enhancing learning across all subjects. An old piano is a masterpiece of engineering and craftsmanship, and a beautiful addition to a home.
Play your part in keeping the history of real pianos alive while enjoying making music of all genres.
Visit our Adopt a Piano Showroom at the Pianodrome Warehouse Granton, The Red Bus Depot, 28 West Harbour Road, Edinburgh EH5 1PN and choose your piano from our constantly changing stock of donated pianos of all shapes, sizes and sounds.
Our team will be there to assist with reservations and donations.
Where our pianos come from
At Pianodrome we receive lots of donated pianos most of which are intercepted on the way to landfill. Some are past their playing days and we dismantle these and turn them into furniture and sculpture (join us in one of our Adapt a Piano workshops). Others just need a bit of fixing and tuning before they are ready to return to the community as playable instruments.
If you are lucky, you may find a beautiful antique piano which has a good action and tone, holds its tuning and is a pleasure to play.
The best thing for an old piano is to find a new home.
What we do at Adopt a Piano
Tom and Shona work in the showroom, and ensure that all pianos coming in are looked after, and that anyone visiting us is welcome and advised towards a piano that suits them best.
Every week, our trusted piano tuner Joel comes for a day of tuning and repairs. This is when we get to clean the pianos, repair parts that might be broken, replace strings, felts, screws, bridal tapes, regulate the action, adjust pedals… This work ensures that all the pianos in the showroom are at their best, ready to be adopted into a new home and to be played for years to come.
Joel’s precious help also allows us to be trained in carrying out repairs ourselves and to be able to assess the quality of the instruments we have in our showroom.
Adoption process and costs
When you find a piano in our showroom that you love, we will suggest a donation amount to be made towards our project. This will be a range which reflects the quality of the instrument, as well as the work and care that may have gone into bringing it up to its best.
We have a variety of pianos at all times, which can cover a wide range of instruments and possible donations. Your donation supports Adopt a Piano and Pianodrome, and is instrumental in keeping the project growing, allowing us to carry on saving and fixing pianos for more people to play and to broaden our knowledge base.
Getting a piano to your home
An adopted piano makes its way to a new home. Video by Mirra Kannan
Once you have adopted your piano it is yours to take home.
Pianodrome are not able to provide transport or cover delivery costs.
Our trusted piano mover Gerry Love has access to our showroom at the Granton Warehouse, so once you have chosen your piano, you can arrange transportation with Gerry directly.
Approximate costs of uplifting an upright piano are £125 plus £35 per flight of stairs.
Approximate costs of uplifting a grand piano are £175 plus £75 per flight of stairs.
Piano tuning
If your piano needs tuning, we recommend our friends Ben and Joel.
Ben Treuhaft at the Underwater Piano Shop (07438 302957) charges £75 for tuning (including raising a pitch as much as one semitone) and £50 per hour for fixing.
Joel Sanderson, The Piano Doctor (07788 406981) charges £70 for a regularly tuned upright piano, £80 for a grand piano and between £80 and £100 for a pitch raise.
Once installed in your home or community space, most pianos will need tuning once every six months to a year - less expensive than feeding a cat.
Lots of piano tuition and sheet music are available online free of charge, as well as in our sheet music library at Pianodrome.
Ready to adopt?
If you would like to proceed with adoption, you are welcome to visit our Adopt a Piano showroom to choose your piano. Our Showroom team will show you around and help to arrange a delivery.
The Showroom opening hours:
Weekdays: by appointment
Saturdays: 11am to 4pm
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Thank you for supporting our project!
Your adopted piano
We love to hear how the pianos are doing in their new homes!
Please email pictures, films and stories about your adopted piano to adopt@pianodrome.org.