This is Robert Estrin. Welcome to livingpianos.com. Today’s topic is: “Where to Place a Piano in Your Home“. Pianos come in all different lengths from around five feet all the way to over nine feet. Most people don’t have a nine foot concert grand in their home! A piano that size requires a large room that can handle not just the size of the piano, but the sound as well. The bigger the piano, the more volume they create.
How to place upright pianos.
I have a video about WHERE TO PUT AN UPRIGHT PIANO IN A ROOM. Upright pianos are all about five feet wide, because of the 88 keys, and they come a couple feet out from the wall. You also want to allow extra space for when the bench is pulled out. Here’s the key though: if you leave some space between the back of the piano and the wall, you’ll get a much richer sound because most of the sound of an upright comes from the back. If the piano is right against the wall, it soaks up the sound. Now on the flip side, if an upright piano is too loud, put it up against the wall or better yet against some curtains and it will be much quieter.
Placing baby grand and grand pianos.
A lot of people think upright pianos are easier to place in a home, but it’s actually easier to place a grand piano than an upright! Ideally, you want to place your grand piano so it opens into the room. It’s nice to have the piano situated in this respect so you can see the keys and the inside of the piano. However, even though this is the typical way that pianos are placed on stage for concerts, in your home it isn’t necessary. It doesn’t matter how you position your piano, you’re going to hear it fine throughout your home. They can tuck into a corner and look quite lovely and sound fine. Or maybe you prefer to sit looking into the room when you’re playing the piano. All of these ways work fine.
Place your piano where you can enjoy it!
If you have an open floor plan, the volume of the piano could be an issue for people in other parts of the house. You want to think about that. You never want to have your piano in a place where you don’t want people to play it because it’s disturbing to you or your neighbors! If a grand piano is too loud, you can put a rug underneath to soak up the sound. With a grand piano, just like the back of an upright, half the sound comes from underneath, or almost all the sound when the lid is closed.
Do what works best for you.
There are many different ways you can place your piano. Baby grands and grands are actually easier to place than upright pianos. They look good any way, and you are going to hear it in your home whether the lid is facing one way or the other. Ultimately where you place a piano in your home comes down to personal preference. So give some thought to where the piano will look and sound best, and will fit in with your lifestyle.
Any of you who have questions about placing a piano in your home, you’re welcome to take pictures and send them to us at info@LivingPianos.com, and we’ll be happy to give you advice about how to place your piano. Thanks for joining us here at livingpianos.com, Your Online Piano Store
This is Robert Estrin. Welcome to livingpianos.com. Today’s topic is: “Where to Place a Piano in Your Home“. Pianos come in all different lengths from around five feet all the way to over nine feet. Most people don’t have a ni
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you about five misleading piano terms. You may have heard some of these terms and wondered what they mean. They may sound scary and you want to know more about them. Let’s dive right in!
The first term we are going to discuss is “Gray Market Pianos”.
When you hear this term, it sounds pretty foreboding, almost like it is something illegal! Truth be known, gray market is a term coined by Yamaha North America. Yamaha North America is the sole distributor of Yamaha pianos on our continent. Every new Yamaha piano that is sold in North America must go through this corporation. Yamaha North America is separate from Yamaha International.
Japanese culture doesn’t like used things so much. As a result, there’s a glut of gently used Yamaha pianos in Japan that nobody wants to buy. Enterprising business people refurbish the pianos and then redistribute them in the United States as used Yamaha pianos. Naturally, Yamaha North America is not too happy about this because it cuts into their market. They do everything they can to try to squash it.
What are some of the things they say about them? There is certainly some truth to their claims! Yamaha wasn’t really an export company until the 1970’s. When you are talking about really old Yamaha pianos, you might wonder if they were made to withstand a wide range of climates. At one point, they weren’t exporting pianos much at all. So, this could be an issue with extremely old Yamaha pianos.
Yamaha talks about the “climatization” of their pianos for the North American environment. Here in Orange County we are about ten miles from the beach. The beach is about ten degrees cooler and probably has about 20% higher humidity than what we have here. That is just ten miles away! Go an hour and a half inland and you could be in the hot desert or cool mountains. There are many climates right around us!
What about the whole North American climate? It is kind of funny to say that pianos are climatized for North America because the climates are so diverse. Any late model Yamaha, from the 1970s and beyond, are made to handle climates all around the world.
What is another problem with buying gray market Yamahas? If a technician is ordering parts for a Yamaha piano and they provide the serial number to Yamaha and it doesn’t match one they sold, they won’t sell the parts. Is that a big problem? Not necessarily. There could be other serial numbers that could be referenced in order to get the parts. Also, Yamaha is not the only parts manufacturer and their parts aren’t so unusual. So, there are parts available from Abel, Renner, and other companies that can be a good fit. You just need to be aware that this is what gray market is all about. Should you be concerned? Possibly, if it is an older Yamaha, but otherwise you should be in good shape.
Another similar parallel comes from Steinway. Steinway’s biggest competition you’d think would be Yamaha, Kawai, or Bösendorfer.
The biggest competition Steinway has is used Steinway.
Why? When you go to a Steinway store you see an $80,000 piano. When you look on the used market you see similar Steinways for half the price or even less. This is obviously a big concern for Steinway. They have coined a term called, “Steinwas” claiming that if you have a Steinway piano and one or more parts on the piano were not made by them, it’s no longer a Steinway piano. Is there truth to this? Yes and no. Sometimes it can be true. There is nothing more crushing than to see badly restored Steinway pianos tarnishing their good name. I applaud them for trying to keep that high standard! However, there are also stupendous rebuilders of Steinway pianos. Steinway does rebuild pianos but they can only do a limited number of rebuilds every year. For all those used Steinway that have been made for over a hundred years, there are really high-quality rebuilders out there. They may choose to use Steinway parts, and you might wonder why they would use any other parts in the restoration. To save a few bucks here and there? Not really. I can imagine there might be a few inexperienced rebuilders who think they can get away with using a cheaper part. But the extra labor it would take to make that part work can negate any savings by selecting the wrong part. The real reason why a rebuilder would use different parts is that Steinway is not a parts builder. In fact, the only parts they have on hand are for the pianos they are currently building.
On a side note, Steinway pianos manufactured in Germany have always utilized action parts manufactured by the German company Renner. Steinway recently bought Renner Corporation.
Imagine a Steinway M from the 1920s that needs a new set of hammers. An inexperienced rebuilder might just order the set from Steinway thinking it has to be right. However, the specifications of Steinway pianos vary over the years. It may or may not be the exact right weight and geometry for a specific piano from the past that you are trying to rebuild. The good news is that there are many companies that make very fine parts. Renner and Abel (to mention just two companies) make great hammers. There are a number of companies that make great piano parts.
The critical thing is using the right part for a specific piano.
Sometimes you go into a store and you wonder about a piano and the salesperson might tout a piano with an “all-spruce soundboard”. You probably think that spruce is great. In reality, “all-spruce” is a clever way of not indicating to you that the soundboard is not a solid spruce soundboard, which is the preferred board for high-quality pianos.
What is important is to have a “Solid Spruce Soundboard”.
A soundboard may be, “all-spruce” but utilizing laminated wood which is simply plywood. What is wrong with that? First, let’s talk about the benefits of laminated soundboards. A laminated board is much, much more durable just like plywood is less likely to crack than solid wood. Why is that? Because the grains are put layer upon layer crossing each other with cement between. It is almost impossible for a crack to go through because each layer of wood is positioned at 90-degree angles to one another.
A laminated soundboard is stronger than a solid spruce soundboard.
The bad news is that laminated soundboards lack the rich tone of high quality, solid spruce soundboards. The vibrations are not as rich and complex. You’re better off with a solid board unless you live in a harsh climate. If you hear the term, “all-spruce”, you now understand the implications.
Another term you’ve probably seen is the “Going Out of Business Piano Sale”.
Many of these are legitimate. When you consider that in 2005 there were over 1,200 piano stores in the United States, and today there are only around 150, you can see that many stores have actually gone out of business. However, this is the way it generally works. A store can’t keep running with depleting inventory and have enough money to cover operating expenses. When they get down to two pianos, how could that possibly work? It can’t. Usually, a going out of business sale entails partnering with another store that feeds additional inventory so their store can function as they sell out their inventory. There is a lot of hype that goes into these sales and sometimes they are very successful with tremendous amounts of promotion. It is not necessarily a bad place to buy a piano. But you should be aware that the sale may not be as desperate a situation as it appears to be. Worse yet, sometimes you see people taking advantage of these situations. A store might do a going out of business sale for months or even years! Sometimes they will even change names and do it all again. I’ve seen it happen and it gives a bad name to the whole piano industry.
Lastly, and related to this, are the famous college piano sales.
You’ll see these all the time. You might wonder how they have so many used pianos to sell. You might remember a similar sale just last year. Here’s how it works. College piano sales are a partnership among a manufacturer, a store, a distributor, and a finance company. They go to a school and offer to put several free pianos in the school for a year in exchange for a sale the following year that is promoted to the entire mailing list of the college or university. It can make for a very potent event.
The vast majority of the pianos at college sales do not usually belong to the college.
This is actually a good thing! If you’ve ever seen what school pianos look like, they are usually thrashed! Because they get used so much, the cases get beaten up and the pianos can be worn out. Indeed, the pianos at college sales have been there for just a year, usually kept in studios, not in practice rooms. These are the college pianos that are sold at these events. That just might be a handful of pianos. Yet, you have a whole school full of dozens of pianos that come from a store who is trying to capitalize on the event by selling a wide range of inventory to the staff, students, and alumni of the school. Is it a good place to buy a piano? Possibly. If you know exactly what you want and you don’t want to go through the negotiation process, it is a fine fit. However, it is definitely not the place to go if you want to try out pianos and have any kind of relaxed way of exploring different instruments for yourself. It is a high pressure, quick, know what you want, here is the price, and buy it situation. While it is not completely deceptive, you should understand what it is. It is mostly a good situation since you are not buying abused college pianos.
Those are five things that are not what they appear to be. I hope this has been helpful for you. If any of you are piano shopping or have piano questions, LivingPianos.com is always here as a resource for you. Thank you so much for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to tell you about five misleading piano terms. You may have heard some of these terms and wondered what they mean. They may sound scary and you want to know more about them. Let’s
Hello I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Is a spinet piano ever the right piano for you?” Indeed there are times when a spinet piano is the best piano! How can this be? Did you know:
Spinets aren’t even made anymore.
What are spinets? Spinets are very short, even shorter than regular uprights or consoles. They can be only three feet tall! You might wonder how they pack a whole piano in there. It is not easy! No one makes spinet pianos anymore because they were deemed to be inferior. Why? Because in order to fit the action inside, they had to cut the keys in the middle so that the keys ended right beyond the fall board and connected to the rest of the action below. It is referred to as an “indirect blow action”, or “drop action”.
Spinet pianos are generally inferior in response.
Although some spinets were better than others. What comes to mind is the Baldwin Acrosonic which is one of the best spinets ever made. It had some technologies that made it a little bit more precise than other spinet pianos. Regardless, spinets don’t have the same substantial feel as other uprights much less grand pianos. Yet, that is why it could be the right piano for you!
How can this be? Generally, you practice piano all week long and then you go to lessons, recitals, friends’ houses, or church to play. You want to make sure your piano translates to other instruments. Spinets are much easier to push the keys because they are smaller. It is easier to play overall. It is not going to prepare you or develop the strength to play other pianos. But suppose you have hand problems like arthritis. You may be limited in how much you can play the piano because you experience pain. A spinet could be the perfect piano for a person in that kind of situation.
While spinet pianos are generally not the best kind of instrument for most people,
in certain circumstances when you want an easier than normal piano with less volume, a spinet could be the perfect piano for you!
That is the long and short of it. I bet you didn’t expect that today! I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.comYour Online Piano Store.
Hello I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com. The question today is, “Is a spinet piano ever the right piano for you?” Indeed there are times when a spinet piano is the best piano! How can this be? Did you know: Spinets aren’t even made a
This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. The question I get all the time from people, and I thought I’d make a video for you about, is how much does it cost to move a piano?
Before I made this video I was curious about what information is on the internet about this. I was shocked to discover that there are really, really low prices listed concerning moving pianos, which may or may not be accurate. You may wonder how can this can be. Well, here is the long and short of it. Number one is,
Piano moves have different costs in different parts of the country.
Since piano moving is such a specialized skill, prices are all over the map. First things first, I would recommend if you ever have a piano to be moved:
Only use movers who specialize in moving nothing but pianos.
If you use a general purpose mover, they don’t know how to do the things that need to be done, particularly on grand pianos since the legs and the pedals need to be removed. They can definitely do damage if they are not skilled in moving pianos. What I’m referring to now is regarding only specialized piano movers.
We move pianos all over the country, so we have a handle on this whole subject. Some areas of the country that are isolated, might not have any piano movers to speak of and they may require extensive travel just to be able to accommodate a piano move. Of course, that’s going to cost you a lot if you’re in a remote area without any piano movers. But there are metropolitan areas that are incredibly expensive to move pianos sometime.
It seems that it’s almost like a consortium. I don’t know if there’s a mafia type of situation or what, but some areas are drastically more expensive than other areas. Reading on the internet, I read that moving uprights costs $100 to $200, and a grand, $150 to $300. This is a best case scenario in most circumstances. As they say, your mileage may vary!
Here in southern California, there indeed is a lot of competition and you can call a number of movers and potentially find a low price to move a piano. However, if you have a really nice piano, you might think twice about using some of the lower priced piano movers who may show up with just a pickup truck and strap your piano without even covering it! You might feel that it’s not a problem since it almost never rains here. But you might not like that whole idea. To have a covered truck with a lift gate, a company that’s insured for $1 million, if God forbid there’s a catastrophe, these can all be things of value regarding a piano move. So, there’s an incredibly wide range.
Another thing is, movers have to deal with unusual challenges like stairs or sharp right angle turns where pianos have to go up on end in a non-standard way. Even elevators can present challenges. Typically, pianos are moved on the long flat side facing down with the pedals and the legs removed. Sometimes a piano may have to go up on the keyboard end, which is not standard, and movers need extra people to accommodate that sort of move. Tight spaces, or sharp turns can also present additional challenges and costs.
There are a wide range of costs for piano moves.
If you realize the intensity of the work and the intelligence required for piano moves, you’ll have a deep respect for your piano movers! I hope this has been helpful for you. I gave you those minimum numbers. You’ll have to check in your local area. It’s not worth skimping if you have a nice piano. Make sure they’re insured and experienced. Check reviews online, and you should be in good shape.
Once again, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.comYour Online Piano Store. Thanks for joining me.
This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. The question I get all the time from people, and I thought I’d make a video for you about, is how much does it cost to move a piano? Before I made this video I was curious abou
A piano for free? It seems like a crazy idea that there could possibly be free pianos, but you would be surprised. In fact there are websites all over the internet with free pianos on them! How can this be? You know that pianos cost thousands of doll
There are hundreds of companies manufacturing pianos in China and many exporters put different names on the pianos to expand their marketing. As a result you are going to have lots of names nobody has ever heard of. Does this mean these are bad pianos? Not necessarily; but they probably aren’t going to be high level instruments on the level of handmade pianos.
To make things even more complex there a number of boutique European piano brands that manufacture only a few dozen pianos a year. Yet many are of very high quality. The fact that you haven’t heard of these doesn’t make them bad instruments.
The great news is that today we can simply pull out our smart phones and look up any piano brand within seconds. If you are looking at a piano and you want to know a little bit about the history of the company don’t be afraid to do some research.
Another thing to keep in mind is that pianos were in their heyday about a hundred years ago in the this country. At one time there were over 1,800 piano manufacturers in the US (compared to only 3 today) and it’s impossible to know all of them. Many of these are great pianos and there are some hidden gems out there. So, just because you haven’t heard of a brand doesn’t make it a good or bad piano. Try to research as much as you can about the specific instrument you are looking at. Ultimately condition is of paramount importance.
There might be a time though where your research will be very limited. If you’ve fallen in love with an old piano from a manufacturer you’ve never heard of and you can only find a limited amount of information about it, you should not be afraid to purchase it if it’s something you are really drawn to. Finding replacement parts is not as hard as you might think as most pianos use uniform parts and any skilled technician should be able to repair or replace them for you unless the piano is extremely old.
If you find something out there you haven’t heard of and are still worried about the purchase, you are welcome to contact us directly and we will be more than happy to research it for you and give you information. info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729
Buying a piano can be a difficult decision. Budget, size, preference, there are dozens of factors that will influence your decision and the brand of the piano is undoubtedly going to be an important factor for many people. So, let’s say you found a
