Piano Video Lesson: How to Choose a Piano

Hi, I'm Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com.

Today we're going to discuss how to choose a piano.

You know, different people are going to have markedly different criteria for choosing a piano.

For example, you're an accomplished, seasoned concert pianist. You've played countless pianos and you have very specific ideas of what you're looking for. And you'll want to try countless pianos to find exactly the touch and the tone that you're after.

But if you're like most people, you haven't had the opportunity to play a plethora of concert -level instruments to really have a realm of knowing what to look for. And you might want to have a trusted person who knows a lot about pianos to help guide the process.

I'm going to try to give you some pointers as to what to look for when you are after a piano.

Now, one of the biggest dividers of what to look for is are you going to go for an acoustic piano or a digital piano? And there are many reasons to choose one or the other. You know, for example, you're living in a place where sound is an issue, a digital piano might be necessary, or some type of technology like a silent piano, one that can be played acoustically, if you can play certain times of the day but can't play other times of the day.

There are silent pianos that can play with headphones digitally, but then when you can play, you know, really full -tilt boogie, boom, during the middle of the day, you'll let it rip, right? That's one alternative for you. But you might want to just have a digital piano. Maybe you have a very limited budget and an acoustic is just not in the cards for you. Or you're living in maybe just a studio apartment and maybe you would need to put the piano in the closet during the day, you just don't have the room for it. There are definitely reasons to get a digital piano. Or maybe you do music composition and you want something that's MIDI so you can USB your digital piano to your computer.

But if you want the ultimate playing experience, an acoustic piano really offers that. And there are two main types of acoustic pianos and those are grands and uprights. And they fall into different sizes, which we'll get to in a moment. But the benefit of grands are many because while a tall upright can rival the sound of a mid -size grand, the action is inferior on even the finest upright pianos. And you can spend $45 ,000 on an upright, get a Steinway or, you know, a hand -built German piano, you get into tens of thousands of dollars. But you know what? The hammers on an upright are striking sideways. So there's a limit to the speed of repetition compared to a grand piano where the hammers have the benefit of gravity.

So if you're an advanced player and you're doing things like rapid repetition or trills, on upright pianos, those sorts of things can be very difficult.

And the finest uprights don't match what you just heard, a fine grand piano action, what it's capable of.

Grand pianos also project into the room instead of into the wall. So you get a glorious sound.

And they're beautiful pieces of furniture. But if, as I said, there are good reasons to get uprights, space limitations, budgetary limitations, maybe it just doesn't fit into your space.

So a good upright can have a nice sound. And if you're not playing something with rapid repetition and a lot of trills and other ornaments that require really fast repetition, a good upright can be a great choice for you.

Now, the size of the piano is another important criteria which I made reference to earlier. Now, all things being equal, bigger is better on pianos. What do I mean by that? Well, if you ever looked inside a concert grand piano, the strings in the treble are very short and they get longer and longer and longer and longer throughout the entire range of the piano. And the nine -foot piano, those bass strings are really long, so you get an even sound from the top to the bottom. Every other piano is a compromise. If you look at a piano this size, here's a baby grand Steinway, by the time you get to the middle register, the strings are about all the same length to the end. They just get thicker and they don't have the same true sound you'll get out of a larger piano. Plus, the soundboard area is larger on a bigger piano, so you get a richer sound just like bigger speakers on a sound system, all things being equal, will sound richer and have a better bass than smaller speakers.

However, there is another thing to consider, and that is the acoustics of the room. Because you don't want to overwhelm a room with a piano that has too much volume, because it will affect the way the piano sounds and the way you play. You can actually do ear damage. I have a good friend who has a beautiful Steinway Model C, a phenomenal scale design, at over seven feet. It's blowing them out of the room, so he has to practice with earplugs. What a shame to have this glorious piano and not to be able to fully enjoy it, because he's got to stuff his ears in order to play it and not have ear damage. Make sure you choose the right size piano. Now, it's not just the size of the room. For example, if you have an open floor plan and the room is open to other rooms, it doesn't matter that that room is small. If the air volume is large, also a wood floor and if there are no soft furniture or drapes or carpets or rugs, even a larger room could be pretty resonant. But a room that has carpeting and drapes and soft furniture will absorb a lot of the sound.

Also, odd shapes of the wall, bookshelves, will diffuse the sound, so the sound bounces around, giving a more pleasing sound. There's nothing worse than what are called square waves. Have you ever been in a hallway and you talk and suddenly the sound sounds robotic and you get that eee? It's like putting two mirrors next to each other with an infinite amount of reflection. That's exactly what happens with sound waves in a small space with parallel walls. And what happens is the frequency of the waveform, that length of waveform, will amplify itself and you'll get those resonant frequencies that are really nasty. You can mitigate that by utilizing absorbing material in strategic places. That's why there are people who specialize in acoustics who design recording studios to try to mitigate those nasty reflections and try to have musically pleasing reflections and natural reverberation.

Now, of course, we have to talk about budget. Of course, you don't have an infinite amount of money to spend.

There are basically two types of pianos in this world and of course there are many, many varieties of these but I'm going to break it down for you very simply. There are hand -built pianos and there are Asian production pianos. What's the difference? Well, you know a piano factory like Pearl River which makes over a hundred thousand pianos a year. That's an astounding number of pianos. That's more than triple the number of pianos that are bought in the United States each year.

They can't make pianos the same way Steinway does. Steinway makes what, a couple of thousand pianos, 2 ,400 pianos a year or Faccioli makes 140 pianos a year. Obviously, they can do things differently from a company like Pearl River or Yamaha or Kawai, mass producing pianos. So there's different methodology of the way the plates are made, the way the type of woods are used and a plethora of other things that can enhance the way a piano sounds and plays.

So the problem with hand -built pianos is cost. Just like a Rolls Royce costs so much more than a Toyota or even a Mercedes because there's hand -built from beginning to end each piano is made from the beginning to the end instead of having pretty much an assembly line of parts that are mass produced and being able to produce at scale, no pun intended, requires different methodology. So you can get a wide range of Asian production pianos and some of them are very, very good instrument. I mean nobody is going to scoff at a CX Series Yamaha. They're really well made pianos.

But you know Yamaha has two levels of pianos above the popular C Series, their conservatory series. Did you know that? And those are indeed hand -built pianos that cost as much or more than Steinway. So you have to figure out your budget.

And that brings us to another point which is new or used. And here again, there are many different things to consider. If you're buying an inexpensive piano and it's an Asian production piano, you realize that there's a limited lifespan to an Asian production piano. Why is this? It's because you're not going to rebuild a piano that's not that costly to begin with. If you buy for example a $25 ,000 piano new, that might seem like a lot of money, but you know what? It can easily cost that much or more to rebuild a piano. So I hate to say it but Asian production pianos, unless they're really high -end Asian production pianos like a CX, a CSX7 or is it C7X? I can't even keep track of all the nomenclature but the seven foot plus Yamaha conservatory grand, that piano is a really fine piano. It could be worth restraining, putting new hammers. But if you're buying a piano, a $10 ,000 or $15 ,000 Chinese piano, you know what? When it wears out, it's basically disposable because the cost of restoring it is going to exceed its potential value.

So used pianos make sense to look for used Steinway's, Mason & Hamlin's, Beckstein's and other top tier pianos, hand -built pianos. Some of the best value pianos could be brands that are no longer made, like Chickering, Knobby, Baldwin. These pianos were great in their day. Sadly, the companies don't longer exist but you find a good Baldwin used and maybe it's not even that old.

Maybe the piano's all original and still in good shape or maybe the piano is worth restoring because those pianos cost as much as Steinway when they were first made and many of them are equal in quality to a new Steinway or Mason & Hamlin which is also still made both in the United States and models also made in China. Be sure you notice the distinction there.

The biggest thing to realize though is that every piano is unique.

You know if you go and play brand new pianos of the same make and model, every one has a different character of sound and touch.

Now hand -built pianos like Steinway are notably unique from one to the next which can be a great thing if you find the one you're looking for but not every one is as good as every other one so you really have to try each one to make sure it suits you.

Now Asian production pianos like Yamaha and Kawai are really made more consistent than other pianos because the manufacturing is very, very tightly controlled. A lot of robotics and such are used but even there no two trees are alike so soundboards and bridges are going to have different sonic characteristics. There's also a lot of hand work even on inexpensive Chinese pianos. You know the bridges are hand notched. Can you believe that? It's true. There's a lot of hand work even in an Asian production piano. They're not just all made in a factory by machines. Man there's a lot of people working in these factories so each one is unique. You must try the specific piano. So if you go into a piano studio and try a piano you'll love it. They say oh we got one new in the box for you. You know unless you're not that picky you really want to try the piano you are buying or listen to it. We provide first class recordings with excellent Neumann microphones of our pianos so you can really get a comparison from one to the next and hear what you like. And there are other online resources you can check out as well. So those are a bunch of things to consider with pianos that you can consider for yourself when you're looking for a piano. If you have any questions about pianos you're looking out there I'm always available for free advice. Just email me robert at livingpianos.com. This is your online piano resource. Thanks so much for joining me. We'll see you next time.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/how-to-choose-a-piano/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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