Sign of the Times: More Pianos are Being Dumped; too costly to maintain

Cafe Society
21

That article depressed me more than words can say.

A digital piano is a poor substitute for a real piano, and for certain music, just isn’t up to the job. First off, there’s no sympathetic resonance with a digital keyboard; all the sustain pedal does is extend the length of time that a note causes the speaker to vibrate. Playing an ‘A’ doesn’t cause all the ‘A’ strings, plus the 'E’s, 'C#'s, 'G’s etc. in the harmonic series to resonate along. I remember working on a Brahms waltz on a Boesendorfer - there were only three notes in the opening A Major chord and it was marked ‘p’. Gently playing the three notes to the bottom of the key made this beautiful, lush resonance that was unmatched by anything a digital could have done.

They have made great advances in getting a natural feel and weight to the keys, but digital keyboards are still not very good at being able to bring out one specific voice out of all the keys. It’s fine if you’re just playing chords - Bach sounds like an undifferentiated mess.

(When I sang ‘Carmina Burana’ in Sault Sainte Marie, it was the second part of a larger concert which included a stunning performance of the Brahms ‘Intermezzo in A Major’, op. 118, #2. When we did the second performance in a school somewhere near Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, the piece was cut from the program. I said to the pianist what a shame that was, because he had played so wonderfully the night before. He said “Thank you, but all they have here is a digital keyboard and there’d be no point. Here, listen…” He then played me a bit and he was right - it sounded like shit.)

22

95% of the piano playing public is not going to be able to hear the difference. And that same 95% is never going to be able to afford a Boesendorfer. I’ve been playing piano over 40 years and I’ve never been within 10 feet of a Boesendorfer.

If you want to keep pianos accessible to the masses you’re going to have to settle for electric. If you refuse that option, then there will be almost no one playing within a generation.

23

Broomstick - that’s why I found the article depressing. Once again, we are valuing convenience over quality.

24

There is no doubt that when it comes to playing Brahms ‘Intermezzo in A Major’, op. 118, #2 in front of a concert audience, you want an acoustic.

However, when it comes to interesting a 6 year old in the joy of learning music, an electronic keyboard will do - and, given space and (yes) convenience considerations, it is in fact the better tool for the job.

How many pianos are bought for concert pianists, versus families with kids wanting to play? It is the latter group I think that is mostly shedding acoustics, according to the article - not high-end pianos, but (probably) out-of-tune relatively cheap pianos used by middle class families to prop up family pictures and for the kids to learn to play. They probably sound worse than electronic keyboards, because most families do not regularly tune them, and they were cheap to begin with.

If we restrict piano-playing to only those able to afford to keep and tune acoustic pianos, the result will be less piano-playing. To my mind, this development isn’t depressing at all - the public is still interested in piano - playing, after all. If and when those kids take the pursuit further, there will always be a market for high-end acoustic pianos.

25

When an “A” is played on a sampled piano, it is a recording of that “A” being played on the original piano. It is a “real piano”, every bit as real as any other recording of that piano. It’s not like they isolated the A string from the rest of the original instrument - all the rest of the piano is adding exactly what it adds any other time that key is struck. And you are wrong about how sustain works with a good digital sample. They record each note with many different levels of velocity, with varying levels of sustain pedal.

It sounds like you are conflating the cheapest digital pianos with the excellent sampled pianos currently available.

As a sound engineer, I have to say that for virtually all non-classical purposes, a good sampled piano will deliver better results. They are recorded in excellent studios using the best example available of that particular instrument, perfectly tuned. If you can afford to pay for the studio time, and if you can find a studio with an excellent instrument, and hire a tuner, and luck into an engineer who really knows how to record piano - then you will get equivalent results. But with a sampled piano, you can record onto your laptop in your bedroom, concentrating on performance, rather than on how much the studio, tuner and engineer is costing you. The $500 cost of the best sample available is going to be less than the cost of a single hour of the studio, tuner and engineer.

26

nm

27

No, in fact, I’m contrasting the behaviour of my Yamaha CP300 and my Kawai RX-3. Even my kids prefer to play the real piano - the digital is there for making funny noises as far as they’re concerned.

28

Pianos aren’t being replaced by electronic keyboards. They were replaced by radios, televisions, and stereo systems.

People used to entertain themselves by playing music. We don’t do that anymore - we watch recorded performances instead of performing. And when we stop playing music, we stopped needing musical instruments.

29

You’re valuing quality at an elitist level that excludes the vast majority of people who have any interest in piano playing at all.

Me, I think enabling as many as possible to play people, even at a low level, will help keep the masses interested enough in piano music to keep the elite concert pianists employed, rather than discarded as useless and unnecessary.

30

So where does the recorded music come from?

31

Professionals rather than amateurs, I suppose.

32

I have to agree with Ministre here, specifically regarding using the sustain pedal when playing – the sounds I’ve heard when doing so with a digital piano have sounded entirely unconvincing to my ears, compared to even a cheap spinet’s sustain sound.

33

I wasn’t able to current price on a Kawai RX-3, but this page puts the price of a 2005 one at $25,290, at least twelve times more expensive than the Yamaha. I’m disappointed that you didn’t address any of the more substantive points from my post about recording quality.

There is a tendency the value the more expensive item just because it is more expensive. But your Yamaha CP300 is not going to a fair example of the best sampled piano. I don’t know how much memory it has, but I sincerely doubt it it devotes 30 gigs to each piano sound. If you want a fair comparison, plug your CP300 into a MIDI interface on a computer and run a state of the art digital piano sample like the East West Quantum Leap Pianos Platinum one I linked to.

34

“The digital piano”? Which digital piano?

Again, there are a far better piano samples available for purchase than the ones that come pre-loaded on most keyboards. If you said you had compared a Steinway D concert grand to the East West sample of a Steinway D concert grand, then we would be talking.

Seriously, I’d like to conduct a piano “Turing test” where the same player plays the same piece on both, and a listener is challenged to identify the sampled instrument from the non-sampled one.

35

I agree that in many/ most situations, the benefits of a digital piano can outweigh the benefits of an acoustic that casual listeners can’t perceive. No different in the guitar world with tube amps vs digital modeling amps.

It just matters at some level, yet the tide is not turning back, and for legit reasons. But it does matter. No different than tribal storytellers looking at books with a melancholy eye…

36

I signed up to donate my organ when I die.

37

I didn’t because I don’t have anything worthwhile to add to what you have said. I am a classical singer, so I don’t have any non-classical purposes for recording; I have only done about ~10 or so recordings, none with digital keyboard. In every case, one of the first questions about the recording venue would have been ‘What’s the piano like?’, and decisions would have been made based on its quality. None of the pianists with whom I’ve recorded would have considered working with a digital piano, so it’s rather a moot point.

So I have nothing to say about your digital super piano.

I think the Yamaha is much closer to ‘the digital piano that is going into most people’s homes’ than the 30 gigabyte per sample keyboard that you’re speaking of. My Kawai is a very good value for the money, but as I’m sure you know, it is nowhere near a top-notch instrument and is not considered ‘concert quality’, even by Kawai itself. We bought it for $15K when it was 9 years old; it’s about 12 years old now and was used by a friend who is an opera coach.

We got the Yamaha while we were between houses; it served as something to practice on in the apartment, and while we waited for the renos to be finished in the studio of the new house. (I did NOT want the Kawai in the house while there was still drywall dust floating around.) I’ve kept it because a) the chamber ensemble with which I occasionally sing does community outreach concerts in homeless shelters as a final stage of rehearsals and b) it has been useful when both kids wanted to practice at the same time.

Frequently I’ll be out of town for 4-5 weeks for a show. Sometimes, I rent a digital piano; sometimes, I make arrangements to play a piano that’s available at the theatre or at the local university/conservatory/music store. So I’m familiar with the advantages of having something there in the hotel room with me, where I can use headphones and practice drunk at 3AM without disturbing anybody. But my best progress has always been when I’ve been somewhere where I can play a piano that inspires me, and those shows stick in my memory. Stirling Festival Theatre, Man of La Mancha was where I got to practice on a Boesendorfer for a couple of hours a day. Edmonton Opera, Traviata, La Boheme was where I got to practice on the Steinway in the rehearsal hall before or after hours. Winnipeg Centennial Concert Hall, also a Steinway, which was the main concert instrument for the Winnipeg Symphony. Whenever possible, it is a great thing to have an instrument that inspires you to make use of the fresh possibilities that it offers. Yes, I play pretty well for someone who has only been studying since 2004; no, I’m not likely to become proficient enough to play much higher than Grade 9 Royal Conservatory of Music repertoire. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good instrument.

So to use cars as a metaphor for a moment - it doesn’t surprise me that practical family cars like mini-vans outsell sports cars like Lambourghini or Jaguar. It also doesn’t surprise me that between upkeep and insurance, many car buyers would pass up on a bargain priced sports car in favour of the Dodge Caravan. What surprises and saddens me is that, even for free, people are deciding to junk pianos because they can’t find anybody willing to take them. It’s as if Jaguars are being crushed into cubes because nobody wants them. Makes me sad, and it underlines that my values and the values of the world at large are diverging, that’s all.

38

The pianos that are being junked are not the Lambourghinis or Jaguars of the piano world. :smiley: They are the out-of-tune cheapos.

You guys who are concern pianists and recording engineers debating the technical merits of one over the other are really talking about a completely different issue. This is all about what middle class people keep in their living rooms.

39

A lot of those who can’t discern the difference between digital and acoustic aren’t going to be able to discern the difference between highest end acoustic and middle-level acoustic either.

40

The pianos being trashed aren’t equivalent to jaguars, they’re beaten up family station wagons.