Generally, how do bands with a piano deal with said piano? The Fray is on tv right now, and that set me to wondering.
I assume that the big stars have a crew to take care of it, but what abour the garage bands? Toting one around is no small thing. They won’t fit in the back of an old Chevy van. Besides being bulky and heavy, a piano needs re-tuning when it’s moved. Some say moving is hard on a piano in any case.
Does Billy Joel use a “house” piano? :eek:
Peace,
mangeorge
Big, famous, and wealthy people like Billy Joel can afford to bring their own.
Not so wealthy folks use a house piano, or much more likely cart around their own electronic boards.
I have done stage crew work for the Pittsburgh Blues Festival http://www.pghblues.com/ and I can say that keyboards were the thing we hated the most. Most artists had things set up with a dolly. Bands that had a big keyboard usually had a truck (not a van). The typical Keyboard that packs up into a flat crate was much easier.
On the bright side, it was cool to tell folks that you were backstage and caught a glimpse of soandso’s “massive organ”.
While someone like Billy Joel could bring their own piano, it’s highly unlikely that he would. For the megastars like him (and actually for any band with moderate success), they’re going to have “riders” in their contract that state the piano must be in working order, tuned, etc… The roadies will test it out to make sure it meets the performer’s standards before the show.
The performer might have a contract with a certain piano manufacturer, which means the venue has to supply a Baldwin, Steinway, etc…
If you’re an up and coming garage band and you don’t have a keyboard, well what are you going to do? You’re at the mercy of whatever they give you!
I wonder, though. Some of these stars (probably not Joel) are pretty picky. I could see Elton John doing such a thing, maybe.
Ben Folds carts his personal grand piano around on all his tours. It’s playing merry hell with stage planning here at Swarthmore, since the crew has to figure out a way to get it up to the second floor of the student union using only a small, windy staircase.
I’m pretty sure Tori Amos lugs her own Bosendorfer concert grand around on tour. She’s definitely the exception rather than the rule, though.
The concert series I used to volunteer for got Rickie Lee Jones a few years ago, and we ended up getting an upright piano for her. I don’t know if her rider just didn’t specify or if they just ignored it; I know we can get a concert grand in there, because we did for Bruce Hornsby. She was pissed and threw a huge diva fit over it, but she got over it and played the show.
Cool. 
Can you get me on The List?
Heh, I’m not actually on the crew… I just know some folks who are. Should be a great show, though. 
I seem to recall reading in a Steinway history book somewhere that Steinway used to maintain “Steinway Rooms” in major cities/venues around the U.S., and whenever a major artist came to play, they would take him or her down to the room and have them try out three or four pianos they always kept on hand. Once the artist decided which one felt the best, they’d polish it up, do some last minute tuning, and send it up to the stage.
No idea if they still do this. The same book mentioned how pissed they’d get in more recent years when rock stars would occasionally destroy pianos.
James Reese Europe’s Clef Club Orchestra, organized in New York in 1910, was a 100-piece orchestra that included ten pianos.
When I saw this questions, that’s exactly who I was wondering about, so that’s cool to know the facts.
When Ben Folds Five first started (~1995), they had their own little crew of folks and Ben has always played a grand piano. I THINK he used a baby grand back then, at least when they were just in Chapel Hill. I’ve read interviews where he said a grand piano is actually quite easy to pick up if you do it exactly the right way.
Easy to pick up yes but not so easy to maneuver around a winding staircase I’ve never heard of him playing anything but a grand - never a keyboard or an upright. He’s been doing it for 11 years and has had pretty much the same road manager all that time (even now he’s solo) so they’ve got it down as to how they move that thing around.
IIRC, “Brick” was actually recorded on an old upright. When Ben Folds Five performed the song on SNL, Folds used a similar piano and was actually criticized by some watchers for not using his usual grand.
With classical music performances, the venue (a symphony hall, or a concert hall, or a church, etc.) will almost always–99.9% of the time–provide a piano to work with. In the event they don’t, an electric keyboard is a sort-of okay substitute.
Eh, I don’t know. Most big-name rock groups I’ve seen who have piano players (as opposed to keyboard/synth players) have had their own pianos. Meatloaf played a grand with a big flame painted on the side. Tori Amos had her piano. Roy Bittan (of Springsteen & The E Street Band) had a shiny white something-or-other.
When you’re playing large enough venues, a grand is just another chunk of space in your truck(s) as you tour around.
Yeah, I guess I could see it going either way. If someone has a specially-painted piano or one that they really, really like, I could totally imagine someone toting it around the country (or world).
I guess I was just thinking of your average run-of-the-mill piano, in which case the venue would supply it.
Yeah, and I’ve never seen, for example, a jazz or classical musician carting around his/her own piano. Probably because a) they tend to not have the same kind of money and/or production costs with putting on a show, and b) they also are less, um, flamboyant in their asthetic sensibilities (you probably wouldn’t see McCoy Tyner playing on a purple sequined piano).
Don’t star soloists, performing with a orchestra, use their own piano? I think they do.