Today we are going to address the question of what is better, a Digital Piano or an Upright Piano. This is a common question here at the store and it’s something worth investigating. While neither an upright or a digital piano is comparable to a good quality baby grand or grand piano, you may wonder which is a better choice.

The big plus to owning a digital piano is that it’s always in tune so you never have to spend time or money maintaining the instrument. Digital pianos can also change their volume as well as be used with headphones so you can practice without disturbing people around you. Most digital pianos allow you to connect to your computer to enhance your experience with programs that can record your playing and aid in learning. Digital pianos also allow you to play with different sounds and effects that simply aren’t possible on a traditional piano. There are a lot of possibilities with a digital piano.

On the other hand there are plenty of reasons that an upright piano is a good choice. If you’ve ever looked inside a piano you see hundreds of parts for each note that make up the piano’s action. Even though an upright piano action is not as responsive as one in a grand piano,

they are much more responsive than even the best digital piano action. There is simply no way to replicate the feel and touch of an actual piano action. This can be incredibly important if you plan on playing anywhere else besides your digital piano since as a pianist you are called upon to play whatever piano is available.

I generally recommend an acoustic piano to any aspiring student, but there are exceptions. If you can’t afford a decent upright piano or you can only get ahold of a shorter spinet piano (which has an inferior indirect blow action) then a digital piano might be a better choice for you. If you want to experiment with different sounds or are severely limited in space, a digital piano might also be the right choice for you.

Acoustic pianos have benefits when it comes to sound. Although digital pianos sample the actual sounds of nine foot concert grand pianos, there are limits to what can be recorded. Even a high end digital piano that has multiple sound samples of each note at different volume levels can’t replicate the range of tones possible on an acoustic piano. An acoustic piano has infinite levels of expression that simply can’t be matched on a digital instrument, although they keep getting better. For an advanced student there is no substitute for the expression possible on an actual acoustic piano.

So, unless you require the features and benefits of a digital piano, you are better off with a good quality acoustic upright piano over a digital piano. There is no substitute to playing an actual piano. Technology keeps advancing and digital pianos continue to get better and better. So, one day in the future this could be a different situation. Until then you are better off practicing on a good upright piano.

You might wonder if there is a difference between the pedals on upright and grand pianos. Not only is there a difference, but there are actually no upright pianos with pedals that function the same as pedals on fine grand pianos!

Let’s discuss each of the three pedals and see how they differ from one-another:

The Sustain Pedal or the Damper Pedal (The Right Pedal)

This is the most commonly used piano pedal and it is the one pedal that functions the same on uprights and grand pianos.

The Right Pedal releases all the dampers so that the tone lives on after you release the keys.

The Sostenuto Pedal (The Middle Pedal)

On a grand piano, the middle pedal functions as a selective hold pedal. It will release the dampers only on the notes that you depress and hold before pressing the pedal. To put it simply: You play some note – while holding them down, press the middle pedal and hold it down to keep the dampers of the held notes from going back down again after releasing the keys. Only those notes continue holding, but new notes played will not hold after you release the keys.

On upright pianos there are a couple different functions for the middle pedal but they rarely perform the function of a sostenuto pedal that a grand piano offers.

Older Upright Pianos

Some older upright pianos have a bass sustain for the middle pedal function. This will only release the dampers on the bass section of the piano and leave the other notes in the middle and the treble alone.

The reason for this is that most pieces of music that utilize the middle pedal have low notes that hold while other notes are played in the upper register. So, it functions almost like a sostenuto pedal in many musical contexts.

Newer Upright Pianos

The trend in recent years has been to move away from a quasi-sostenuto (bass sustain) pedal in upright pianos and replace them with what is referred to as a “practice pedal”

The practice pedal is designed to allow someone to practice the piano while reducing the volume of the piano substantially. It accomplishes this by placing a piece of felt between the hammers and the strings. The hammers then strike the felt and the volume of the notes is greatly reduced. This pedal will “lock” into place by pushing it down and to the left and will enable you to still utilize the right and left pedals on the piano in addition to utilizing the practice function.

This is a very useful pedal for homes or apartments where the sound of the piano could be bothersome to neighbors, parents or other members of the household.

Una Corda or Soft Pedal (The Left Pedal)

This pedal is important because it changes the tone of the piano. On a grand piano this pedal will shift the entire action – you can actually see the keys move from left to right – and the hammers will strike the strings off center making for a softer sound.

Una corda means “one string” because originally pianos only had two strings for each note and this pedal would shift the action so the hammers hit single strings instead of both. Modern pianos have three strings for each note (through most of the piano) and shifting the hammers makes it so they don’t hit the strings squarely. Not only that, the hammers will hit the strings where they aren’t grooved which produces a warmer tone since the felt is softer than the compacted, grooved part of the hammers.

On upright pianos the left pedal does not function at all like it does on grand pianos. It does not shift the action from left to right but typically will move the action closer to the strings.

By placing the hammers closer to the strings, the left pedal will change the touch of the piano but does not change the tone. It is much more difficult to gain momentum with the hammers closer to the string making it harder to play loud, but not change the tone.

There is a little trick you can try with the left pedal on upright pianos. Because it shifts the action closer to the strings, if you hit the pedal quickly, it can make the hammers strike the strings and produce a sound. On some older pianos if you hold down the right pedal and pump the left pedal you can produce some very weird sounds! It’s certainly not meant to function this way but it’s something fun to try sometime.

I hope that this solves the mystery of the pedals on upright pianos. There is a lot of misconceptions about how these pedals function when compared to grand pianos and my hope is that this article has shed light on this subject.

Grand pianos are generally better than upright pianos. However, there are 2 reasons to consider an upright piano:

– Limited space

– Limited budget

Although an upright piano may be considered because of space restrictions, because of its design, a baby grand may be easier to place. The back of an upright piano is ugly. This is why it is almost always placed on a wall. So you need about 5-feet of wall space to accommodate an upright piano (even a short one).

However, a baby grand piano looks good however you place it. The flexibility allows for placement in a corner or even the middle of a room. So in some instances where space is at a premium, a baby grand may be easier to place than an upright piano.

It is true that you will have to invest more money to get a baby grand piano compared to an upright. However, there are several distinct advantages in regards to sound and touch:

– The sound of an upright comes out the back. As a result, the sound goes into the wall. A baby grand or grand piano opens up into the room projecting the sound where you want it.

– The keys of an upright are shorter than a baby grand (and much shorter than a grand piano). Not the part you see, but behind the fallboard. As a result, it is harder to press black keys and between black keys on an upright than on a baby grand. Just like being near the center of a see-saw, it is difficult to get leverage on an upright piano because the shorter keys don’t allow for the leverage you get on a grand piano.

– The hammers travel sideways on an upright action instead of up and down as in a grand action. So even the best uprights have sluggish actions because they don’t have the benefit of gravity helping the repetition of the hammers.

– Last, the pedals on an upright don’t do what they are supposed to do (except the sustain pedal on the right). The soft pedal (une corde) on a grand piano shifts the action so that the hammers hit only 2 strings instead of 3. This gives a change of tonal color which is one of the most magnificent expressive devices of a piano. In an upright, the soft pedal changes the touch by making the hammers closer to the strings which makes it harder to play loud but doesn’t change the tone at all. Also, the middle pedal (sustento) rarely provides the proper function on an upright.

So if you can afford it, get a grand piano or a baby grand. You will appreciate the difference.