How to Choose a Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today, we’re going to discuss how to choose a piano. Different people are going to have markedly different criteria for choosing a piano. For example, if you’re an accomplished, seasoned concert pianist, 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, 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.

Are you looking for an acoustic piano or a digital piano?

There are many reasons to choose one or the other. If you’re living in a place where sound is an issue, a digital piano might be necessary. There are also silent pianos that you can play with headphones digitally, but they can also be played acoustically. 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 piano is just not in the cards for you. Maybe you’re living in a studio apartment, and you need to put the piano in the closet during the day. Maybe you do music composition and you want something that has a MIDI or USB interface so you can plug it into your computer. There are definitely good reasons to get a digital piano. But if you want the ultimate playing experience, an acoustic piano really offers that.

There are two main types of acoustic pianos: grands and uprights.

The benefits 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. To get a Steinway or a hand-built German piano, an upright costs tens of thousands of dollars. But 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 since they go up and down. So if you’re an advanced player, and you’re playing things with rapid repetition or trills on upright pianos, those sorts of things can be very difficult. Even the finest uprights don’t match what a fine grand piano action is capable of. Grand pianos also project sound into the room instead of into the wall, so you get a glorious sound! And they’re beautiful pieces of furniture as well. But there are good reasons to get an upright. Maybe you have space or budgetary limitations that make a grand unattainable. A good upright can have a nice sound. And if you’re not playing something with rapid repetition—a lot of trills and other ornaments that require really fast repetition—a good upright could be a great choice for you.

The size of the piano is another important criterion.

All things being equal, bigger is better on pianos. What do I mean by that? Well, if you ever look inside a concert grand piano, the strings in the treble are very short, and they get longer and longer throughout the entire range of the piano. On a 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 baby grand piano, by the time you get to the middle register, the strings are all about the same length to the lowest notes of the bass. 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 bigger pianos, so you get a richer sound.

Another thing to consider is the acoustics of the room.

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 it. It can actually damage your hearing. I have a good friend who has a beautiful Steinway model C, a phenomenal scale design at over seven feet. It’s blowing him out of the room! So he has to practice with earplugs. What a shame to have this glorious piano and not be able to fully enjoy it because he’s got to stuff his ears in order to play it without causing ear damage. So make sure you choose the right size piano for your space. And it’s not just the size of the room you need to consider. If you have an open floor plan, it doesn’t matter if the room is small, so long as the air volume is large. If your room has a wood floor and if there is no soft furniture, drapes, carpet, or rugs, even a larger room can be pretty resonant. A room that has carpeting, drapes, and soft furniture will absorb a lot of sound. Also, odd shapes along the wall, such as bookshelves, will diffuse the sound so it bounces around, giving it a more pleasing tone. There’s nothing worse than what are called standing waves. Have you ever been talking in a hallway and it sounds robotic? It’s like two mirrors facing each other, creating an infinite reflection. That’s exactly what happens with sound waves in a small space with parallel walls. The frequency of the waveform will amplify itself, and you’ll get resonant frequencies that are really nasty. You can mitigate that by utilizing absorbent material in strategic places.

Of course, you have to think about your budget.

You don’t have an infinite amount of money to spend. There are basically two types of pianos: hand-built pianos and Asian production pianos. What’s the difference? Well, a piano factory like Pearl River makes over a hundred thousand pianos a year. That’s an astounding number of pianos! It’s more than triple the number of new acoustic pianos that are sold in the United States each year. They can’t make pianos the same way Steinway does. Steinway only makes about 2400 pianos a year. Fazioli only makes 140 pianos a year! Obviously, they can do things differently from a company like Pearl River, Yamaha, or Kawai that mass-produces pianos. There’s a different methodology in the way the plates are made, the woods that are used, and a plethora of other things that can enhance the way a piano sounds and plays.

The problem with hand-built pianos is cost.

A Rolls-Royce costs much more than a Toyota because it’s hand-built from beginning to end. The same is true of pianos. With a company like Steinway, each piano is hand-made instead of having pretty much an assembly line of parts that are mass-produced. You can get a wide range of Asian production pianos, and some of them are very good instruments. Nobody is going to scoff at a CX-series Yamaha. They’re really well-made pianos. But Yamaha has two levels of pianos above the popular C series, and those are indeed hand-built pianos that cost as much or more than Steinway! So you have to figure out your budget.

Should you get a new piano or a used piano?

Here again, there are many different things to consider. If you’re buying an inexpensive Asian production piano, realize that there’s a limited lifespan. This is 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 it can easily cost that much or more to rebuild a piano. So I hate to say it, but most Asian production pianos aren’t worth restoring because the cost of restoring them exceeds their potential value. So it makes sense to look for used Steinways, Mason & Hamlins, Bechsteins, and other top-tier hand-built pianos. Some of the best value pianos could be brands that are no longer made, like Chickering, Knabe, or Baldwin. These pianos were great in their day. Sadly, these American-produced pianos no longer exist. But you could find a good Baldwin used that maybe isn’t even that old. Maybe the piano is all original and still in good shape. The piano could be worth restoring because Baldwin cost as much as Steinway when they were originally made. And many of them are equal in quality to a new Steinway or Mason & Hamlin, which are the only companies still producing pianos in the United States. Some Mason & Hamlin models are made in China today, so be sure you notice the distinction there.

Every piano is unique.

If you play brand new pianos of the same make and model, each one has a different character of sound and touch. 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. You really have to try each one to make sure it suits you. Asian production pianos like Yamaha and Kawai are more consistent than other pianos because the manufacturing is very tightly controlled. A lot of robotics are used. But even then, no two trees are alike. So soundboards and bridges are going to have different sonic characteristics. There’s also a lot of handwork. Even on inexpensive Chinese pianos, the bridges are hand-notched. So there’s a lot of handwork, even on Asian production pianos. They’re not just all made in a factory by machines. There are a lot of people working in those factories. So each one is unique. You must try the specific piano because even pianos of the same make and model can vary quite a bit in sound and feel. So you really want to try, or at least listen to, the piano you are buying. We provide first-class recordings with excellent Neumann microphones of our pianos, so you can easily get a comparison from one to the next and hear what you like.

So those are a bunch of things to consider when you’re looking for a piano. If you have any questions about pianos, I’m always available for free advice. Just email me at Robert@LivingPianos.com. I’m always happy to help in any way I can! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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