Do all pianos sound the same?

Factual Questions
21

[QUOTE=gotpasswords]
And then go listen to any real piano. We had a decent electric piano and while it sounded nice, there was something missing. Over on the real piano (in our case, a spinet) you can tell that the origin of the sound is something is being hit. The one thing that the nearly thousand dollar electronic instrument could not capture was that impact of felt hammers on steel wires.
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:smack: I didn’t mean to imply that even an excellent electric piano can sound as wonderful as a good “real” piano. Even the best electric piano can’t, alas, but it’s a great deal better than a number of other alternatives. Mine is; Roland is one of the best mfrs, and this wasn’t a low end model; it was a gift from a friend whose father was also a pianist. He informed me in no uncertain terms that he was buying me an electric piano, and questioned me closely about what was important to me. When someone is determined to spend that kind of money, all you can do is ensure they’re not wasting it.

However, such a piano, with decent amps (or headphones), can convey to the untrained ear that there are real differences. That was the whole point. If I had both space and money, believe me, I’d have a “real” grand piano - the best one I could find.

I found the Bosendorfer story entirely plausible, BTW. Real musicians care less about the name on the case than about how the instrument sounds - and no two pianos sound alike, even ones assembled on a production line. That may be why the Japanese pianos (Yamaha, Kauai) are as good as they are - they understand workmanship. But, of course, there’s nothing like a Bosendorfer, and a Steinway is usually next best. :slight_smile:

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I wasn’t tying to knock any sort of instrument, be it an elderly piano from a garage sale or the latest digital incarnation.

What I was really aiming at, but managed not to say, was that there are zillions of subtle differences in the piano’s action - whether it’s a hammer being dropped on the wires from above in a grand, hit from the side in a studio or upright, or hit from around the corner, as in a spinet. And from there, the condition of the hammers - is the felt fresh and soft, or old and hard, are the hammers grooved from years of play, and so on. It would not surprise me to find someone out there that claims to be able to tell if a piano has been polished regularly with Lemon Pledge or not, as the stuff would have a cumulative effect on the wood and the piano’s finish.

Back to the OP - Can a random piano be made to sound like some other piano? Only to the untrained ear of a person saying “That’s a piano.” To the ears of anyone that’s ever been in the same room with a piano, it’s probably not going to happen.

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[QUOTE=GiftofSchizo]
My wife…claims that she can recognize individual pianos within the program by their sound, despite the fact that these are all identical instruments with about the same amount of use, maintenance, tuning, temperature and moisture conditions, etc. I have no reason not to believe her.
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This is my experience with virtually every Steinway I’ve ever played, and frankly, I think it’s a weakness of the brand.

I’ve loved pianos all my life, and I’ve read a fair amount about them, how they evolved and how they’re made. About eight years ago I had occasion to buy a new grand piano. So in addition to studying up on all the instruments in my price range, I also went to all the piano stores in about a 75-mile radius and played every instrument I could, including every name you’ve ever heard of, and many you probably haven’t: Kawai, Baldwin, Boston (a Steinway design built by Kawai), Estonia, Schimmel, Steinway, and even the 10-foot, $100,000 Bösendorfer Imperial (which was unfortunately not in my price range!). (Googling around, I just found this site. The second picture down may be the actual instrument I played, because that was the store I went to, and the date he mentions is about right.)

Now, I’m not a great musician. I’d rate my skills slightly above a monkey banging on the keys. (On my best days.) But even the dumbest monkey could tell that the Bösendorfer was miles beyond any other instrument. The touch, the tone, was just magical. It made me feel like I was Van Cliburn.

But playing a number of Steinways was quite a surprise to me because, more so than most other brands I tried, they were very inconsistent from one to another, even within the same model. Some were noticeably brighter or more muted than others. And the touch varied, too.

I ended up buying a Yamaha DC3A Disklavier. It has a bright, rich tone I really like. Steinways on average have a duller tone that I guess classical pianists like. The Yamaha, as you can see from the link, has an integrated digital player mechanism that can record and play back your performances, as well as playing any MIDI file. It also has a built-in synthesizer and sound system, and lots of other bells and whistles. All for a price I was willing to pay.

Now, as for Tori Amos’ story about how Bösendorfers are made, I’m going to take it with a slight grain of salt. But I’m not going to quibble because, whatever they’re doing, it works.

But the mystical air around building by hand is a bit overrated. For instance, Yamaha has gone further than any other maker in modernizing and automating the manufacture of pianos, and as a result their instruments are more consistent, unit-to-unit, and throughout the life of a single instrument, than virtually any other brand. I’ve experienced this personally, and have heard the same from other players and from piano technicians, who are the real experts.

It’s my understanding that Steinway has not gone as far in modernizing, and while they produce far fewer instruments than Yamaha, they make a lot more than Bösendorfer. And I suspect that the inconsistency in their pianos may be a result of traditional methods hurried too much, or stretched beyond their usefulness in the modern age. But that’s just my humble opinion.

Well, they’re called strings, and and in a grand, the hammers strike them from below, not above.

I know you’re joking, but a little explanation may be helpful for those less familiar with pianos. The complex mechanism that translates the striking of the keys into hammers hitting the strings is called the “action.” In a grand, the action is below the strings, and after a hammer hits a string, gravity drops them back to their resting position. In an upright (which is taller) or spinet (which is shorter), the strings are vertical, so the action has to be somewhat more complex to return the hammers to the resting position. The upright’s action is entirely above the keyboard, but the spinet’s is not, which makes it even more complicated (and inevitably less responsive). I assume this is what gotpasswords meant by “around the corner.” But it’s not literally true. In case anyone was wondering.