Hi Mr. Estrin,
I love to watch your videos. My question might be difficult to answer.
At my piano school, I play on a Remington grand and at home, I have a Yamaha upright p22.
When I play my pieces at home, I don’t have any problem, but at school, I am unable to play softly and the action is not very responsive.
Also, the weight of the keys on the two pianos is almost the same. Is the source of this problem the Remington, my Yamaha or me?
Thanks for your answer to my question.
– Youtube Viewer
Thank you for contacting me with this very good question. It is typical for pianists to feel much more comfortable on the instrument you practice on daily since you become so familiar with the response. One of the biggest challenges facing pianists is the fact that unlike other musicians, we can’t take our instrument with us. So, being able to adjust to many different pianos is part of being a pianist. It is important to have a practice instrument that provides a baseline for other pianos you play on. For any reasonably advanced player, a grand piano or baby grand is essential to continue progressing. There are many reasons for this, but primarily, even the best upright pianos have sluggish actions because the hammers travel sideways instead of up and down as in a grand piano. As a result, they don’t have gravity working for them and they are slower in response. You can watch my video on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD1QxoxabMQ
While upright and grand pianos have fundamentally different actions, this may not be the only issue facing you in trying to adjust to the piano at school. Remington is a lower line, Chinese made piano. These instruments are difficult to keep in a high state of regulation. That coupled with the intensive institutional use of the piano undoubtedly gets at school, and there is the possibility that the piano is not performing on a high level.
So there are 2 issues here: the adjustment from an upright piano to a grand piano, and the possibility that the school piano isn’t up to par. I suggest you experiment playing on as many different pianos as possible, both uprights and grands so you can get a feel for what different pianos are like. This can be an invaluable experience and may solve the mystery as to why you have such ease at home and difficulty playing at school.
One thought on “Piano Questions: Why You Play Piano Better At Home”
Indeed, I ran into this problem when the pinblock went bad on my first piano, and I had to buy another. I was so accustomed to that particular action that I couldn’t play as well on anything else, even top dollar new concert grands.
Robert’s advice to play as many different instruments as you can is excellent. I have both a grand and a digital, to get two radically different feels.
— J.S.