Piano and Music Videos

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is about why you must play on more than one piano. I am very fortunate because I’m always surrounded by pianos. As a matter of fact, when I was born, there was a piano in my bedroom, and my father had two pianos upstairs as well! We had four pianos in our house most of the time when I was growing up.

There was a time when I was first married that we had 27 pianos in our house!

I was teaching piano, and oftentimes, prospective students didn’t have pianos. This was before the days when you could buy a fairly inexpensive digital piano that would be serviceable for a beginning student. So I made it my business to have lots of inexpensive pianos around. I’ve been surrounded by pianos my entire life! Now with Living Pianos, I have a concert grand Steinway, a six-foot two-inch Steinway, a Mason and Hamlin grand, a Knabe grand, and I have a Chickering baby grand upstairs to name a few. I am loaded with pianos! But what about you?

How can you play more than one piano, and why should you?

Why is this so important? My wife is a flutist. My daughter is a violinist. So, like most instrumentalists, they can take their instruments with them wherever they go. So it’s no surprise when they show up for performances. The acoustics may offer challenges they’re not used to, but at least they have their own instruments with them. As pianists, we don’t have that luxury unless you’re only playing for yourself, by yourself in the same place all the time. If you never want to play for anybody else or with anybody else, then maybe you don’t need to play on more than one piano. But for most of us, you want to be able to play at school, at church, at friends’ houses, maybe you even play occasional concerts.

When you sit down at a piano you haven’t played before, everything feels different.

The pedals respond differently. The touch is different. The tone is different. The only way you can really learn to overcome that is by playing other pianos. Naturally, if you’re playing a concert, you want to have a chance to try out the piano beforehand, if at all possible. Sadly, a lot of times it’s not possible. You get to the hall, maybe a few minutes before and there’s noise. Maybe they’re vacuuming. You never get a chance to really try out the piano. And I’ve got new news for you. Even if you get the opportunity to play a piano in a hall before a performance, once people come into the room, it changes the acoustics and it can feel markedly different!

How can you play different pianos?

You can try to go to piano stores, although piano stores are not there for that purpose. You might not be welcome just to play pianos there. But some stores might allow you to play their pianos if you ask them very nicely. If you’re in the market for a piano, of course, they will welcome you to try different pianos. But I would never suggest that you pretend you’re looking for a piano and waste their time because they’re very busy and have work to do. You don’t want to take their precious time away from their job. Oftentimes, schools have multiple pianos, If you can figure out how to get in and play those pianos. Maybe at your own school or church or some other place, you can find a piano to play. If you’re on vacation and you’re jonesing for a piano, you might scope out the bar to see if there’s a piano there, or maybe tucked away in a corner outside of the convention rooms. I always make a beeline for these pianos when I’m on vacation!

There are many different places you can try out pianos. It’s really important. The way the tone develops, for example, in the bass on a larger grand is so different from that of a spinet or a console piano. If you’re playing on digital pianos all the time, you don’t even have anything close to the feel of a grand piano. So it’s vitally important if you want to be able to adjust to pianos you encounter.

Is that the only benefit? Far from it!

You will learn so much about your playing, about your technique when you play other instruments. You may discover that a problem you thought you had in your playing is actually your piano! Maybe your piano doesn’t repeat fast enough. Maybe the regulation isn’t great. Maybe the tone of your piano is lacking in one area or another and you’re constantly overcompensating.

When you play other instruments, you realize how individual your piano is, because every single piano is different.

In fact, even brand new pianos of the same make and model are markedly different from one another. Each instrument is its own work of art. So try to play on different pianos any opportunity you get. You will grow as a pianist and a musician, discovering new possibilities of tone and phrasing, and finding new technical solutions on different actions. Try it out. Let me know how it works for you! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

This is LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s question is: Should you buy a Steinway or other fine piano? It’s tough when you’re going to buy a piano. You will see digital pianos for a few hundred dollars. Then there are pianos for hundreds of thousands of dollars! So what should you get? Obviously not everybody has the resources to buy pianos that cost a hundred thousand dollars or more. But there is definitely a choice of how far to go.

How much should you spend on a piano?

Let’s say you have the option of buying a Steinway, Bechstein, Mason and Hamlin, or some other top-tier, hand-built piano. But you could buy a perfectly good Chinese or Indonesian piano, brand new, for less money than a used Steinway or Bechstein, or something of that nature. Which one would be better for you? Is one going to hold up better? Is one going to be more satisfying to play? Is it really worth spending tens of thousands of dollars, or over a hundred thousand dollars on a piano?

There’s a lot to consider. From an investment standpoint, it actually makes more sense to buy a fine piano than to buy a cheap piano. For example, let’s say you buy a no-name stencil piano, a piano that comes from some unknown factory in Asia with a familiar name on the front of some piano company that went out of business years ago. And it’s from a reputable company and from a good store. Nobody’s trying to pull wool over your eyes. They’re telling you like it is, “This piano is made in China and imported.” It looks just as nice as the $80,000 piano sitting next to it. Why should you even consider getting an $80,000 piano, or even a used, top-tier grand piano for $30,000? Is there any reason for this? Well, think about this: a $30,000 fine used piano or $80,000 fine new piano are instruments that, because of their intrinsic value, are worth rebuilding when the time comes. That’s why you see a lot of rebuilt Steinways, Mason and Hamlins, Blüthners, and other really fine pianos. Because the cost of new ones is so great, they are worth rebuilding.

What if you buy a brand new baby grand for $10,000. (I believe there are some in that price range, although things have gotten a little bit more expensive lately.) Well guess what? When that piano wears out, it’s not worth rebuilding! The cost of restoration exceeds what the piano could eventually be worth after being rebuilt.

So I hate to say it, but they’re essentially disposable pianos!

Sometimes it’s hard to know when to pull the plug. Do you put new hammers on a piano you bought for $10,000? Should you spend $3,000 on action work? Or do you just get another piano at that point? Do you restring a piano you only spent $10,000 on? Do you spend thousands to restring it? You don’t have to ask that question if you have a Blüthner or a Steinway, do you? Of course it’s worth it, because new ones cost $80,000 – $100,000!

Of course, you’re not buying a piano as an investment, you’re buying a piano as an instrument to play.

So, what is the difference then? It depends upon how important piano is to you. If you’re an advanced player, obviously you want a piano that’s on a high level, with proper preparation. Any piano requires maintenance, but a higher quality piano will be more stable over time. It can maintain a higher level of regulation and voicing and even tuning, so you can enjoy a higher level of playing. And it won’t nickel and dime you trying to keep it that way. A lesser piano could involve more work to keep it playing okay. This isn’t always the case. There are some relatively inexpensive pianos that offer moderately good performance that can remain somewhat stable for you. So, I’m not saying every cheap piano is going to cost more to maintain. But many of them will. That’s one thing to consider. The other thing is what it will do for your playing experience. If every time you sit down at a piano you get a beautiful tone, you’re going to want to play more. Not only that, but you can do more with the music.

One of the benefits of having a really high-quality piano is the expressive potential of the instrument.

There are more gradations of loud and soft as well as colors of tone that are possible on a high level piano. On lesser pianos, the notes will start dropping out when playing very softly because the action isn’t refined enough to achieve a true pianissimo compared to a well regulated, hand-built instrument. On the other level, on a fine piano, you can play louder and louder without it ever getting harsh. With a piano like a Baldwin SF10, which is one of the great American pianos of all time, you can put tremendous energy without ever over driving the sound into distortion. It’s like a really high-quality sound system where you can turn the volume up, and it doesn’t hurt your ears. It just fills the room with sound. You can even feel the sound. On a lesser system, you wouldn’t want to turn it up that loud because the audio gets harsh and distorted. When you are playing a really fine piano, it will never get harsh, no matter how much energy you put into it. You never introduce distortion into the sound. It just opens up with beautiful, rich sonorities.

So, what level piano should you buy?

The right piano for you to buy depends upon your resources. You certainly don’t want to stress yourself by getting a piano and then not being able to pay your bills! However, if you look at the long term, you only buy a piano once if you buy a piano like a Steinway, Bosendorfer, or something of that nature. Whereas when you buy a lesser quality instrument, it’s very possible at some point in the future, you’re going to get something else. So, you might buy two or three pianos over time. If you get a fine instrument, you buy it once. And that piano, if it’s well-cared for, can get passed down from generation to generation. So, from a monetary standpoint, it’s an investment rather than an expense. And you get to enjoy the sound and the beauty of a fine instrument. So, is it worth it to get a Steinway or other top-tier piano? It absolutely can be.

Is there any benefit to buying a fine piano for a beginner?

Sometimes parents want to buy a piano for their children. They say, “Well, I don’t want to get anything too expensive. I don’t know if they’re going to stay with it.” And some parents just buy keyboards for their children to take piano lessons. What they’re doing is setting up their kids for failure. Because the keyboard is not going to be satisfying to play. And if it’s not a weighted action, their kids will have difficulty at lessons playing on a real piano. So you have to get a good enough instrument that is going to be rewarding and worthwhile to play. The piano you practice on should prepare you to play other pianos, which is the other big point. If you get serious at all, you will get to play in recitals. Or maybe you get to play at your school, or church. You’re probably going to be playing fine pianos at some point along the way. If you’ve never driven a sports car, you might not have any idea how to drive one. But if you know how to drive a fine automobile, you’re going to be able to drive anything that runs okay. The same is true with fine pianos. You gain experience getting the most of any piano when you are accustomed to playing on a fine piano on a regular basis.

There are many good reasons to get a fine piano.

The most important thing is that you’re going to enjoy it more! And it’s a good investment, so you can justify it for yourself. So yes, go out and get a Steinway. You’ll never regret it! Thanks again for joining me. I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is, “Can You Play Expressively on a Portable Piano?” I am presenting an award-winning digital piano for you. I first saw the Casio Privia PX-S1000 and S3000 when it was introduced at the NAMM show, the huge, annual, international music trade show in Anaheim, California. I knew immediately that I wanted to buy one for myself! You might wonder why. I have all kinds of pianos. I have the top-of-the-line Casio Grand Hybrid and my beautiful semi-concert grand Baldwin SF10. Why would I need this? Well, with the Casio Privia PX- S3000, you just take off four thumb screws, and you’ve got a 24-pound piano you can take with you anywhere! It even runs on batteries! And I was blown away by the sound. The on-board speakers are really nice, the action feels great. I just love this piano! I even got one for my daughter! I think it’s an ideal piano for a lot of folks. And It’s only a few hundred bucks. How can you beat it? Casio has been winning awards like crazy on these pianos. It’s really pretty remarkable.

What’s the difference between the PX S1000 and the PX S3000?

There are more sounds and rhythms on the 3000. But you get the same action, the same speakers, the same high quality piano sounds on both. You also get the addition of a pitch bend wheel and a couple of continuous controllers on thePX S3000. It also has 700 sounds, which is massively more than the 18 assorted sounds on the PX S1000. But if you just want piano and keyboard sounds, the 1000 is a great choice.

There’s so much to love about this piano. It has Bluetooth, so you can use the speakers to stream music from your phone and play along! You also get the incredible Chordana app. This app gets you to all the functions of the piano easily. If you’ve ever used a digital piano, trying to do splits, layers, adjusting the touch, and other functions on a little screen, you know how difficult it can be. On this piano, you just use an iPad or your phone, even an Android phone, and you get to all the functions right in front of you! It even has music education software built in. It’s really pretty amazing.

There have been some questions about the action on this piano. I think the action is stellar for a piano of this type.

One of the challenges with any digital piano is being able to fit an action into a compact package. This is such a sleek cabinet, it’s unbelievable how they fit an action in here. So the question is, can you play expressively on this piano? If you want to know more about the Casio Privia PX S1000 and S3000, there are lots of great videos online. But, today, I’m going to focus on whether you can play expressively on these pianos.

In the accompanying video, I played a little bit of Chopin’s B-flat Minor Nocturne, a piece that has all sorts of flourishes, fast notes, and slow notes, to see if it’s possible to get good control out of this digital piano. You can watch that here:

So, if you want a piano that you can take anywhere, there’s even a backpack that you can pop this thing in. You can take this piano to gigs, to friends, even out to the park to play the piano! I can’t think of anything more fun than this, a piano you can take anywhere!

I’m interested in your opinion. Did you think that was expressive playing? Any of you who have these pianos at home, I’d love to hear your comments.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos!

Robert@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Hi, and welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin with a very special announcement:

Now you can buy brand new Seiler pianos from Living Pianos!

Seiler, from Germany, started building pianos in 1849 making concert instruments as well as excellent practice and institutional pianos. Some things never change! Today, Seiler still manufacturers pianos in Germany and around the world, and they’re amazing instruments we’re proud to represent and sell to you anywhere in the country.

What is Seiler about? There are three editions of Seiler pianos. I’m going to get into a lot of that and I’m also going to perform on this beautiful six foot 10 inch SE – 208 model, which is the top of the line series Seiler. There are many things about these pianos that are remarkable. Starting with the GS line which has a wide tail and a wet sand cast plate, double A grade, solid spruce soundboards, and German Abel hammers. It’s an amazing value piano with so many features you don’t find in pianos at this price point. They are beautifully manufactured.

The SE and ED lines are above the GS line and they have some technologies that are not found in any other pianos.

The Membrator Soundboard, is Seiler’s unique technology that provides more sustain to the tone. How is this possible? At the point at which the soundboard is attached to the rim of the piano, the Membrator System transfers sound back to the soundboard, reinforcing the tone. It’s a phenomenal system that’s found in the SE and ED pianos.

The ED line is manufactured in Asia, with exactly the same scale design as the SE line with precision manufacturing. How are they able to achieve this? With German engineering!

With Computer Numerical Control (CNC) a precise duplication of all the specifications are possible in the Asian factory offering you an instrument that is so close to the top of the line, hand-built piano, but in numbers where everybody can enjoy these phenomenal instruments.

On the accompanying video, you can hear a complete performance of Debussy’s Clair De Lune performed on the German made, 6-foot 10-inch, model SE -208.

It’s something to be in the presence of true greatness in pianos. The singing tone, and the clarity, are achieved with a warmth not found in other European pianos. This piano has it all. You’ll be hearing a lot more about Seiler pianos.

Their vertical pianos also have technologies that no other pianos have.

The problem with upright pianos, as you probably know, is there’s a limitation in the speed of repetition because of basic physics. In grand pianos, the hammers go up and down, giving you rapid repetition and control since gravity is at work. On uprights, hammers travel sideways. So, there’s a limit to the speed. Or is there?

With Seiler’s patented, Super Magnet Repetition you can achieve much more rapid repetition than on other upright pianos.

This is available on both the SE and ED lines. The affordable GS line has all kinds of technologies as well! There are pianos with silent systems, and player systems are available as well. We welcome your questions. Once again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store. Thanks for joining me.

info@LivingPianos.com

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin and today’s question is, “How Do You Find the Serial Number on Your Piano?” There are a number of reasons why you might want to know your piano’s serial number. The piano’s age, along with its condition, and any repair work done to it will affect its value. You need to know this if you’re considering buying or selling your piano, or for an insurance claim or charitable tax deduction. You might also need to know the serial number for a bill of sale, insurance rider, warranty claim or moving or storage receipt. The serial number determines the age of your piano. Once you find it, you can reference the Pierce Piano Atlas, which has all the piano brands with the serial numbers, so you can determine when your Piano was built.

Where can you find the serial number on your piano?

If you look inside your piano at the plate, you may find a date and think your work is done. But it’s not so simple. In fact, the date of manufacture is never stamped on a piano. These dates usually refer to prizes that were won or patents that were awarded, but never the date of manufacture. So you’ve got to dig a little bit deeper. If you’re looking at a grand piano, the first place to look is under the music rack. You can simply slide the music rack out towards you. Underneath, usually on the left hand side on the plate, you’ll see a series of numbers. That can very well be the serial number of your piano. Reference the Pierce Atlas, and you’re done. But sometimes, you’ll see two sets of numbers or even more. It can be very confusing.

There are other numbers you may encounter.

Model numbers generally are letters and sometimes they have numbers in them. So, if you see a letter followed by a bunch of numbers, the first letter might just be the model, followed by the serial number. Over on the right hand side, you might see less digits. This could be an in house numbering system they used when they were manufacturing the piano, or sometimes it’s an artist number for concert grand pianos. Suppose the piano has been regilded, that is, the plate has been painted over. Does that mean you can’t figure out the serial number? Well, the good news is, pianos almost always have the serial number in more than one place. And the serial number isn’t always found on the plate.

There are several other places a serial number can be found.

Sometimes the serial number is stamped into the soundboard, usually towards the front of the piano. Look at the soundboard and you might see numbers. I’ve seen it on the back of the soundboard or even in the rim of the piano, under where the lid lifts up. Like I say, sometimes it takes a lot of detective work to find the serial number on your piano! Now, suppose you look all over the place inside the piano, but you still don’t see it. Well, then you have to go a little bit further.

Something you can do on your own that’s not that hard, is to take the key slip off in front of the keys. Some pianos, it just lifts out. Others might have several screws underneath you take out. Carefully lift up the key slip. You’ll may see the serial number on the key slip itself stamped into the wood. Or it could possibly be on the key frame of the action of the piano. No luck? You still have some possibilities. You can check underneath the piano. Take a flashlight under the piano and look around. Typically, it will be behind the pedal lyre on the piece of wood behind the pedal assembly. But I’ve seen it in other places down there. Sometimes, even on the bottom of the soundboard!

You might want help from a piano technician.

If you haven’t found the serial number yet, you may want to have your piano technician look for it, because you can potentially damage the piano taking it apart yourself. Your piano technician can possibly find the serial number by removing the action and taking out the cheek block screws on the ends of the piano. Once the key slip has been removed, the fallboard can sometimes lift out. But with older pianos, the fallboard is attached to the cheek blocks and this can be tricky to take out because they can fall off. This is why you should use a piano technician. The serial number is oftentimes stamped on the cheek blocks. If you still can’t find the serial number, then you can have your piano technician pull the whole action out a bit. The serial number might be stamped somewhere else on the action. If not, have your piano technician pull the action out completely, put it safely on a piano bench or a table, and hunt inside the piano with a flashlight to find the serial number.

You didn’t think this was going to be so complicated, did you? Well, the good news is, most of the time it’s not. Generally the serial number is on the plate, but now you have some resources just in case it’s not there.

Are there pianos with no serial number at all?

Yes, this can happen when a manufacturer puts the serial number on the plate or another part of the piano that has been replaced. If the plate was regilded or the soundboard was replaced, you might have no way of determining the serial number, or even the manufacturer of a piano! On some stencil pianos, that is OEM pianos that are produced by third party manufactures, it’s all but impossible to figure out not just a serial number, but even the make of a piano!

Where is the serial number found on upright pianos?

Most often the serial number on upright pianos will be right in the front. Open up the top and look inside. If you don’t see it there, you can look around back and sometimes you’ll see the serial number stamped in the back of the piano.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. See you next time.

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Naturally, these are generalities and there are many exceptions such as Hamburg Steinways which are much closer to New York Steinways in sound than they are to other European pianos. You are welcome to comment on your experiences playing American and European pianos. Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729