Piano and Music Videos

Today we’re going to compare uprights to baby grands and determine which are better. This is a very popular question. People may think they don’t have enough room for a baby grand piano and that a large upright will suffice or possibly sound better than a baby grand. This is because large uprights can have longer string length than smaller baby grands as well as larger soundboards. There is a lot to think about with this question.

Fundamental Differences between Baby Grands and Uprights:

I will tell you right out of the gate that I have a bias. I believe baby grands and grand pianos are fundamentally better instruments than upright pianos. There are a number of reasons why I believe they are superior instruments. First let’s consider why you might want to consider getting an upright piano.

There are 2 Good Reasons to Get an upright:

One reason to get an upright is if you have limited space. The other reason to consider getting an upright piano is if you have a limited budget. However, placement of a baby grand can sometimes be far simpler than placing an upright. Consider that an upright piano takes up 5-feet wall space which you may not have available. Whereas a baby grand piano looks good from any angle which offers more versatility in placement. As far as budget is concerned, you’re going to have to invest more to get a high quality baby grand compared to an upright. So this could be a final determination for you.

Reasons Why a Baby Grand Offers Higher Performance:

If you’ve talked to me about pianos in person or on the phone, you know I always stress the importance of considering the long term implications when purchasing a piano. Unlike buying a car, a refrigerator, almost anything else you buy, the piano you purchase you will probably keep the rest of your life if you buy the right one since they last a very long time.

Since the back of an upright piano is unfinished, they are almost always placed against a wall. Since the sound comes out the back of upright pianos, the sound goes into the wall. Whereas a baby grand or grand piano’s sound is projected into the room. So, there is a sonic benefit to the design of baby grands.

All Students Eventually Outgrow Even the Finest Upright Pianos

Something that baby grands and grand pianos offer is a superior action. In vertical piano actions on upright pianos, the hammers travel sideways. So, there is a limitation to the speed of repetition compared to a grand piano action which has the benefit of gravity since the hammers travel up and down. Even a mediocre baby grand piano can offer much more rapid repetition than a fine upright piano. Uprights will not repeat with a tremendous amount of energy because gravity is not working for it the way it does on grand pianos.

There is More to Piano Actions than Just Speed:

Another area in which grand piano actions are superior to upright actions is in key length. Grand pianos generally have longer keys than upright pianos – not the part you see, but behind the fallboard. Larger grand pianos have even longer keys than baby grands! This is important since pushing shorter keys on upright pianos is like being close to the center on a seesaw. It’s difficult because you are in a weak point of leverage the closer you get to the fallboard. It’s difficult to push black keys and between black keys on upright pianos relative to the ends of the keys. Grand pianos have a more consistent feel because the leverage is more even from the front to the back of the keys.

Pedals On Grand Pianos:

Only the sustain pedal has the same function on upright pianos as on grand pianos. The other two pedals on almost all uprights do not do what they are supposed to do. If you ever push the left pedal, you notice that the entire action shifts to the side slightly on grand pianos. Whereas normally hammers strike three strings through most of the piano, when you depress the una corda pedal, the hammers only strike two of the strings dead on when this pedal is engaged. This gives a change of tonal color. On upright pianos, the soft pedal does not change the tone. Instead, it alters the touch by making the hammers advance closer to the strings making it more difficult to play loud. One of the most extraordinary aspects of expressiveness on the piano is the use of the soft pedal. This is something that is important to experience. The middle pedal (sostenuto) which is rarely utilized in piano music usually doesn’t function properly on upright pianos. Usually they are practice pedals which make the sound soft by engaging felt between the hammers and the strings.

Well Worth the Investment:

So, if you have the space and the budget, you will be rewarded with superior action, projection of sound, full pedal functionality, as well as a more elegant piece of furniture if you get a baby grand or grand piano. Plus, piano students who practice on baby grands or grand pianos progress more quickly than those who have uprights at home since lessons, recitals and competitions are most often played on grand pianos and being used to these instruments gives students a competitive advantage.

This is a really interesting question and there is a lot to it. It’s fascinating how various cultures prefer different types of sounds. For example, have you ever noticed that Asian pianos tend to have a brighter sound than American pianos? You might have wondered if it’s because of methodology. Yes, but it also involves cultural preferences. Let’s get back to European pianos now.

I am also a French hornist and my wife is a flautist, so we have played in many orchestras and have been obsessed with listening to orchestras since childhood. If you listen to some of the great recordings by European orchestras like the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam or the Berlin Philharmonic, you’ll notice a very different quality of tonality when it comes to the instruments in European orchestras compared to American orchestras like the Philadelphia Orchestra or the New York Philharmonic.

Each individual instrument is different! With the French horn for example, the American sound is a big fat sound. In fact, most American French hornists play on the F side of the double horn which is three feet longer than the B-flat side. When playing higher notes, they may play on the B-flat side making it a little easier to play, but for the richer and fatter sound, they generally prefer the longer F-horn. In Europe, it’s much more popular to play pretty much on the B-flat horn for most of the notes giving a more open and clear sound with less fatness.

It’s not just French horns and flutes, but all the instruments in the orchestra have that kind of clear projecting sound, more than the fat blending sound. The same exact phenomenon is true with pianos. Listen to a Fazioli, Bosendorfer or a Bechstein and compare that to a Steinway or Mason & Hamlin. You can also compare these to some other great pianos from years past like Baldwin and Knabe and you’ll hear a real difference in the quality of the sound. As I explain to people time and time again, it’s not a question of right or wrong. Some people’s favorite color might be blue and others prefer purple. It comes down to personal preference.

What I find to be true though is that for certain styles of music, one could be more appropriate. For example, when I sit down at a great European piano that’s beautifully regulated, voiced and in tune and play a piece from the Baroque or Classical eras, a European piano can have a perfect quality of sound. The delicacy and the clarity is well suited to those periods of music. On the other hand, sometimes when you are after a massive sound; you really want an American piano for the big fatness that European pianos can lack.

I’m going to stop right here and say that I’m giving a gross generalization and for everything I’ve said there are absolutely exceptions. For example, I’ve sat down on some Bluthners that didn’t have that quality of sound that I’m describing in European pianos. They sometimes have a dark fatness that you don’t hear typically in European pianos. Baldwin still has the American sound, but some are closer to my ears to the European sound than other American pianos. For example, they aren’t quite as fat and voluptuous as the sound of a Mason Hamlin. There seems to be a lot of overlap in this and what I have offered are general observations. You also have to consider Hamburg Steinway which is afterall, a European piano!

The other thing I find is that the typical European piano can be almost like a fine sports car. You have to be careful not to hit the throttle too hard and lose control. If you put a tremendous amount of energy into a fine European piano, sometimes it’s more than necessary. You can get all the sound needed without having to exert so much energy the way you can on a great Steinway. It’s almost endless. You can just keep putting more and more into it getting different colors. Is that a good thing? Maybe, but for some people, they feel they don’t have to work as hard achieving a wide range of sound out of a great Bechstein for example.

So again, this isn’t a right or wrong issue and ultimately it comes down to two things: personal taste and the specific piano which is equally important. You can’t say that all European pianos are one-way or even that all Steinways are the same. After all, each instrument is handcrafted and they’re made with wood, and no two trees are alike. So you have to listen to each piano for what it offers. These are general guidelines that you can put in the back of your head when you’re trying pianos and see how well the specific piano you sit at meets these criteria.

I hope this has been interesting for you! Again, this is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com Your Online Piano Store! 949-244-3729 info@LivingPianos.com

I wear shoes that are comfortable and don’t squeak. It’s always important to test your shoes to make sure you don’t get pedal squeak. It can sometimes happen depending upon the sole of the shoes. I’ve worn so many different types of shoes – even sneakers and all sorts of other footwear. I’ve even played barefoot! It’s possible to play the piano with all sorts of different types of shoes. Sometimes I see women wearing high heels and I wonder how they can negotiate the pedal!

A great deal of it comes down to what you are used to. Of course, if you’re going to be playing a concert, you want to test the shoes you’re going to be wearing and be comfortable with them. Just imagine if you practice all the time in sandals. Then you go out in a public performance wearing dress shoes and feel a dramatic difference in the feel of the pedal. This could be a real challenge! So, you have to get used to the shoes you’re going to wear in performance.

The other thing to consider is that pedals, as I’ve talked about before, are different on all pianos. So, some pedals travel a very short distance and other pedals travel quite far. Also, where they engage is different. Even the height of pedals can be different. Have you ever had the experience of going to a piano that’s on one of those spider dollies or an upright on a dolly in a school? The whole piano can be up high and you’re trying to reach the pedals at a drastic angle. This can be tough to deal with!

I’ve actually had the circumstance of playing in concerts where the piano was on one of those dollies, so the piano was higher from the floor than usual and it was uncomfortable. I was also sitting too low even with the bench in the highest position. We found a piece of ¾ inch plywood to put the bench on extending all the way underneath the pedals as well, and that solved the problem perfectly!

There are a lot of solutions to the myriad situations you find with pianos, but one thing to note is the importance of getting used to wearing a variety of shoes. It’s one less variable to worry about. Test the shoes you are planning to wear for a performance, ideally on the piano you are going to be playing on and you should be in good shape.

We get this question all the time. So many times people call up and have old pianos they think are valuable. The first question isn’t: What’s the brand or what’s the size? It comes down to one thing: condition. Condition is everything with pianos. You’d think that a piano that dates back a hundred years or more would have some antique value. You hear about people who find treasures on Antiques Roadshow and they find out things they own are worth a lot of money. Not so much with pianos.

Now there are some exceptions. First, if for example you had one of the very first Steinway pianos ever made or maybe even another manufacturer, one that’s truly historical in its significance. For example, if Chickering only made half a dozen of a certain model and you had one of the last one’s made in the 1860s, there could be some antique value. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I would say maybe one out of 10,000 pianos might fit into that criteria. It’s a rare thing to have true antique value. Another example might be a piano that was owned by a famous person. That’s a whole other area, and as a matter of fact, for appraisals you have to find the right appraiser who can take that into account because it is really hard to assess value based upon a piano’s lineage.

Other than that, what other things are there to look for? There are certain brands that have more stature than others. Naturally, Steinway is the most well known brand of any piano. So, older Steinways can retain value even when they need rebuilding. There’s a market for them because used Steinways can command much more money than other pianos because everybody knows the name. Still, the condition is so important because the cost of rebuilding a piano can be very expensive. It can cost $20,000 – $30,000 to rebuild a piano that has been neglected or has seen much use over the years. You have to ask yourself what the piano would be worth after restoration. If the answer is less than the cost of the work that you’re going to put into it, you’ve got a negative net worth which is obviously no value.

The complicated description of parallel chords is: A series of chords that consist of intervals which do not change as the chord moves. Let’s break this down and make it a little more digestible for the average piano student.

I was recently sent a question about parallel chords and I thought it would be an interesting subject for a video. Carol asks, “can you think of any pieces off the top of your head that utilize parallel chords?”.

The one that jumped out to me right away is Sarabande pour le Piano by Claude Debussy. While these chords are not exactly parallel chords, they are very close and have harmonic relevancy. In the video above I demonstrate the portion of the piece that utilizes parallel harmonies which is very close to parallel chords.

When I was a child I remember a piece called “Run Run” by Octavio Pinto that used a lot of parallel chords. I remember learning it as a kid and I’ve never forgotten it. It’s a great piece for beginning students as it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. Although the hands alternate in the actual piece, they are just parallel chords!

I’ve been enjoying and trying to read and listen to all of your “blog” contents on various subjects. I really enjoy them and am learning a great deal from them.

Gary

The subject of smaller keyboards is fascinating going back to the great 20th-century pianist Joseph Hoffman who had a special smaller keyboard made for him by Steinway. Charles Walter Piano Company is offering smaller keyboards on their pianos as well. Having small hands myself, it’s good to learn of yet another piano company that has offered smaller keyboards!

While the market for such an instrument would be small, with the wonder of the internet, I believe with the right marketing, it would be possible to connect with people who would appreciate an instrument of this sort.

I have not had the opportunity to play many Steingraeber pianos, but understand that these are top notch instruments in the European tradition of Bösendorfers and others.

Thank you for your kind words about the videos.