Category — Buying A Piano: New & Used

The Young Chang company, owner of Kurzweil and makers of fine mid-level grands, is shipping to America again after years of entanglement with the Samick piano company. I tried many of their pianos and was impressed with the Young Changs as an excellent aternative for cost-conscious grand piano buyers. Young Chang also owns and produces the Albert Weber grand pianos, and these are truly fine instruments.

In the category of pianos that have improved there overall touch & tone, I was particularly impressed with the newest Mason & Hamlins and Knabes. The new Wm. Knabes have achieved one of the fastest actions I’ve played on any grand piano, and I spoke with their head action designer, who talked of better counter-weighting in the keys and a super-fast upward return of each key. If you are an accomplished pianist and you live somewhere where Wm. Knabes are sold, you gotta check these out.

Kawai demonstrated there super-light-but-strong graphite-core action parts, and showcased their top-of-the-line Shigeru Kawai grands, that played and sounded delicious. For those with unlimited pockets, there was a stunningly beautiful Shigeru Kawai in Bubinga, Burl and Rosewood that retailed for $200,000. The same piano was available in plain black for a mere $80,000.

The Schimmels were, once again, all uniformly excellent, a must-try for any serious piano player, and if you’ve got the coin, the larger Fazioli grands were heavenly, as impressive as any grand I’ve ever played. If you want to see a cool 360 degree view of Fazioli’s concert grand, click here to go to Fazioli’s site, then click Products, their Model 308, and then choose 360-view.

One of my greatest surprises on the piano floor was a grand and an upright made by Ritmuller, which is the high end line of China’s largest piano manufacturer, Pearl River. Now, I’ve serviced a lot of the inexpensive, low-end Pearl Rivers because one of my dealers carried them as his bottom line piano. To say they are crap is being generous. So I wasn’t expecting much from the “higher-end” models of a truly awful PSO (piano-shaped object.) But the Renner-hammered Ritmullers were surprisingly well-mannered in both touch and tone, and their impressive upright retails for under $4,000, unheard of for a piano that sounds like this.

Perhaps my favorite piano at the show was, surprise, a Yamaha. Now don’t get me wrong, Yamahas are uniformly solid in tone and touch, and consistent from piano to piano in the way that only a production line instrument can be. As I said in an earlier post, they are the best production piano available, with a price that still maked them one of the most affordable fine pianos. But normally I would never expect even their top of the line concert grand to approach the touch and tone of a more expensive hand-crafted instrument like a Fazioli, Schimmel, Steinway or Bosendorfer.

But this year Yamaha debuted it’s CF series, to replace it’s former upper-end S-series grands, and several of us crowded around their new flagship, the top-secretly researched, fully hand-crafted, Bavarian soundboarded CFX. We each took turns playing and listening, and I’ve got to tell you, we simply couldn’t pull away. Although other great instruments were beckoning from other rooms, we kept coming back to the CFX, absolutely stunned by it’s rich, monstrous bass, it’s singing middle register, and a top two octaves where each note sounded like a bell ringing, right up to the highest C! For piano fanatics, it was pure piano bliss! I played it as long as I could before I was literally pulled off. The action was superb, though I still preferred the even-more-buttery actions in the Bosendorfer and Fazioli, but it was damn close. And the sound, that sound, I’ve just never heard a piano sound like that. Goose bumps!

Want to see this amazing instrument explained & demoed at the 2010 NAMM ? Click here to see videos on Yamahas own website. Just open the menu called Keyboard Division Product Demos, in the left sidebar, and choose the first & last video pictured.

Naturally, I want one. But when they are finally released this summer, I think there going to retail for well over $100,000, and I’m a bit short this year. Well we’ll see. If you get a chance to demo one of these later this year (only in top Yamaha dealerships like Keyboard Concepts in L.A.), be prepared. You may never want to play any other piano again.

Every January, all the manufacturers of musical instruments and accessories – pianos, electronic keyboards, drums, guitars, brass & wind instruments, recording gear, etc. -  converge on Anaheim CA to show their wares for the upcoming year at the National Association of Music Merchants convention. The NAMM show is always held at the massive Anaheim Convention Center (right across the street from Disneyland,) it’s always packed, and the main floor is always crazy, cacophonous chaos!(See Video below)

As you wander this humongous space the size of 4 football fields, you jostle & bump into straight-looking dudes in suits and sweaters, and mopped-top, studded-vest rock relics who look a lot like Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Flea, and other rock legends…because they are Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Flea, and other rock legends. Yep, I’ve seem all of them there, as well as rubbing shoulders with Elton John, Carlos Santana, Jay-Z, and so many others. All of them seem to make it to the NAMM show at one point or another.

The show is only open to people in the “music trades,” although I’d swear every year I see more and more people who have nothing to do with selling or servicing music equipment, but still manage to cop an entrance badge. Because I am a musician, recording engineer & producer, as well as a piano technician and fanatic, I always walk the noisy main floor, checking out the latest cool guitars, keyboards, drums and microphones, but lately I find myself spending more and more time on the much quieter second and third floors (I’m gettin’ older, folks) where all the piano manufacturers trot out their latest wood, felt and metal beasts.

So what’s new in the world of fine pianos?

Well, one thing you immediately notice is the piano brand names that were noticeable for their absence. Steinway doesn’t show at NAMM, because they consider themselves the “standard piano of the world,” so venerable that people will come to them even if they don’t show anything new at NAMM every year. But many other well-known companies were missing, either because they couldn’t afford to ship in a bunch of their pianos (Germany’s Bechstein, Bluthner and others) or because they’ve gone completely out of business (like the huge Asian piano conglomerate, Dong Bay.) 2009 was tough for everybody, man, and pianos are mucho expensivoso to manufacture. Esteemed and minor brand names are dropping like flies. That’s the bad news.

The good news is, those companies that are still around definitely had some wonderful instruments to debut. After watching the cool NAMM 2010 video below, click here to go right to my next post, where I share some of the highlights.

NAMM 2010

After you’ve found where to look in your area for used pianos (newpaper and online classifieds, piano stores, etc,) and gotten a general idea of which brands you’ll be sampling, here’s what you must consider next:

Age & Quality:
Rule # 1 – buy the newest, most reputable used piano you can afford. When you start your search, you’ll see advertised pianos as old as 120 years, with obscure brand names on the fallboard and very questionable condition. You’ll also see pianos from well-reputed manufacturers that are less than 40 years old, and everything in between. Try to hone in on the newer better quality instruments, and skip over any old clunker built prior to WWII (even if the wood-carving is ornate & gorgeous…I know it’s tempting!)

The simple fact is, while the structure of a piano (the cabinet and plate) may still be intact after 60 years, the inner parts won’t be. They have a given “shelf-life.” Even if not played that much, most of the critical inner parts – the hammers, dampers, bass strings, and various key & action felts – will certainly be worn out and need replacing. So even if they’re selling a 1915 upright from a reputable manufacturer for just a couple hundred bucks, or even giving it away, you’ll be into it for $1200 to $2000 once you replace all the defunct & decrepit components.

Better to stick with one that’s used, but not that used. Say, a Baldwin or Yamaha or other well-known brand, built no earlier than 1960. Any piano this young will, most likely, have hammers, dampers and strings that are still intact, a soundboard that hasn’t started to flatten out yet (see our earlier posts, "The All-Important Soundboard" and "Soundboard Racks & Cracks") and most important, a tight pin-block.

WIll It Hold A Tune?
A piano is useless if it can’t hold a tune. The tremendous tension on each string is held in place by a tuning pin driven into a multi-laminated wooden block called the pin-block or pin-plank. If the tuning pins have worked loose in the wood, or worse, if the pin-block, due to age and dryness, has started to form cracks running through the tuning pin holes, that piano is toast. Well not entirely toast; you could restring the entire instrument with a fresh new wooden pin-block, but that’s a major undertaking, and usually cost-prohibitive for any used instrument except finer old grands that will be worth tens of thousands once rebuilt.

Unless it was left outdoors or subject to huge abuse, it’s rare to find any piano only 50-years-old or less, with seriously worn out parts or a loose or cracked pin-block. So play it safe…find a “newer” used piano built by a well-known company. The seller may ask as much as $700 to $1500 for, say, a well-cared-for Baldwin or Yamaha built in 1973, but you’ll save tons of money and aggravation in the end, over that bargain-basement $150 old clunker at the thrift store. Just say pia-”no”

Of course, sometimes people see some beautiful hand-carved full upright built in 1901, and, in spite of the warnings about pianos this old, they just gotta have it. Which brings us to the single most important rule in purchasing ANY used piano. Take a fine piano technician with you to appraise it’s condition and value. I cannot stress this too much. There are too many critical factors you won’t know to look for, and won’t have the proper tools to test even if you did find them, and, just to save the technician’s small service fee, you’ll end up buying trouble. I can’t tell you the number of sad clients calling me AFTER they bought a used piano, to say it’s full of problems, sometimes thousands of dollars worth, when they should have called me BEFORE buying. Pay a tech to come with you and check it out, period.

As previously noted, this is a piano fanatics site, and those of us who know and love the pure, glorious sound produced by the fine, larger grand pianos tend to think everybody needs to have one of those. Obviously, not everyone can afford a $25K+ piano, and some, who can afford anything they like, should perhaps not have one either.

I have one piano service client who purchased a $125,000 Bosendorfer, with cash. We’ll call him Mr. Johnson. When I made the appointment to do the initial in-home tuning, I found, not surprisingly, that he lived in one of the most opulent ranch-land areas of Southern California, a hidden valley filled with posh mansions overlooking acres of gorgeous horse country. I was let in by his housekeeper, and spent almost 2 hours nursing that Bosendorfer to perfection. When I was done, I asked the housekeeper where was Mr. Johnson, so he could come play it and approve my work. She said he was in his office at the other end of the house (which was practically a bus-ride away!) She called him and handed me the phone, and I said, “Hello Mr. Johnson, I’ve just completed work on your new Bosendorfer. Would you like to come up and check it out, make sure you’re happy with my tuning, etc?” He replied, “Oh, I don’t play.” I said, “Oh, well then who’s the player in the family?” He said “No one, none of us play.” My jaw dropped and I went white, but I said no more, just thanked him and left. I knew from experience that if I had asked the obvious question of, “Then why the hell did you by a $125K piano?’ his answer would have been, “Because I can!” Sheesh! What a waste of a perfect instrument.

But I digress. The point is, as much as we piano purists would like to match up every player with a truly superb new instrument, there’s always going to be lots of piano buyers purchasing inexepensive old and used instruments, because that’s all they can afford or all they want to invest in a piano at this time. Some used pianos are in such bad condition, or were of such poor quality to start with, that they virtually guarantee the fledgling player will lose all interest in piano playing shortly after commencing. Still, it can be argued that even an old clunker with poor sound and cumbersome touch is better than no piano at all.

So how should a person of limited means, who really wants a piano, find the right one? Where should they look, what brands should they covet or avoid, and how should they test the beast to see if it’s worthy to bring home? Let’s list a few basic factors:

Where to look: Most used pianos in your general vicinity will be advertised in your newspaper’s classified section, and online on Craig’s List. There are other online sources for used pianos, like PianoWorld.com and even eBay, but then you’re looking at pianos that may be a country away, or at least several states. And you can purchase a used instrument from a reputable local piano store – indeed I recommend it, because they will guarantee it and take it back if it’s defective -  but you’ll pay a premium over what you’d pay if you bought it directly from the past owner.

As far as brands, it would be optimal if you could only search through the well-established, highly-reputed names like Steinway, Baldwin, Yamaha, Chickering, Knabe, Mason & Hamlin, etc. However, a good used version of one of those can be hard to find, and certianly more money if you do find one. It’s more likely, as you skim the classifieds, that you’ll be browsing off-brand pianos with names you may never have heard of. At one point in the early twentieth century there were over 300 piano manufacturers – it seemed like everybody and his brother said, “Let’s go build some pianos.” Much of what you’ll be seeing in the used market could be one of these more obscure makes.

But that doesn’t mean you cannot still find a good serviceable used instrument. In the next post , we’ll go through a checklist of what you must look for to insure a decent used piano.

Europe in general, and Germany in particular, are the current hub of fine piano manufacturing. More superb pianos come out of Germany and Europe than anywere else, with fine brands like Bechstein, Bluthner, Steingraeber, Bosendorfer, Pleyel, Grotrian, Forster, Schimmel and Fazioli, and the previously mentioned Hamburg Steinway. Some of these brands, like Schimmel and Bosendorfer, are now widely franchised in America and readily available here (particularly in the larger cities,) whereas you can only procure the others at smaller boutique dealers in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, or by purchasing them direct from Europe and having them shipped to the USA (very pricey!)

Steinway of New York, in particular, has gone to great lengths to insure that there will be no franchises or dealers in the USA for the German Steinway, which they see as a source of serious competition. Although many players and technicians feel the Hamburg Steinway is superior to the New York version in quality and touch (myself included,) they really needn’t worry. The tone color and feel of the two are so different that any serious pianist will simply pick the one they like the sound and touch of best, not the one that comes from this or that country.

Pianos from Bechstein, Grotrian, Forster and Bluthner (all German) and Pleyel (French) are all excellent, and readily available all over Europe (the piano you here on The Beatles “Let It Be” is a Bluthner grand at Abbey Road Studios in London), but hard to audition and purchase in the USA, so aside from saying, if you can find them, they are well worthy of your consideration, we won’t expound much on them here. Deeper information on each of these brands is available through Larry Fine’s superb “The Piano Book”, a book any serious piano lover should own.

Bosendorfer, from Austria, makes incredible, and incredibly expensive, grand pianos. Like Steinways and Schimmels, they are made almost entirely by hand, and they are a sight to behold. They play like butter and many sound wonderful, but you’ll need at least $50K for their smaller, starter model, and they go up to over $150,000. Not for those who live by a weekly paycheck. Yamaha recently acquired Bosendorfer Piano in a prestige move (for Yamaha) and a financial solvency move (for Bosendorfer.)

Schimmel makes gorgeous grands with a sound and liquid action comparable to Bosendorfer, but at much more reasonable prices ($25K – $75K.) I love them as much or more than Bosendorfers, and as a technician who works on them regularly, I was proud to discuss this with Nikolaus Schimmel himself a few years back. He was grateful and very humble.

Fazioli Pianos of Italy have only been around since 1978, but their dedication to sheer piano perfection has quickly caught the attention of some of the best players in the world. If you can play one of their six grand models in the USA (big cities only) and have the cash (they are as expensive as Bosendorfer) you may never be able to settle for anything less in a piano again. They even make the world’s largest grand piano, at 10’2”, over a foot longer than other concert grands.
 

Their is also a rise of recent entries from Eastern Europe like Petrof and Estonia, which started out as poor-quality imitators of their Western European counterparts, but which many techs claim are rising in quality, with a very acceptable European sound and good prices.
 

One of the reasons the American pianos experienced such a downfall was due to the invasion and steady rise of cheaper-made & priced Japanese instruments. Leading the charge were two brands, Yamaha, and to a lesser extent, Kawai, both made in the industrial city of Hamamatsu.

Both of these instruments were “production line” pianos, taking advantage of ever-improving Japanese technology and machinery, and being built to repeatable tolerances by machine, rather than by hand. This made them cheaper to manufacture, and inexpensive for the vast drove of “average” piano players who couldn’t tell too much difference between these machine-made pianos and handmade instruments. Whereas Steinway and other handmade brands could barely produce 100 grand pianos each year, Yamaha could roll out that many pianos in a couple months.

The result was that they infiltrated homes, schools and other institutions and soon became the largest selling pianos in America, and eventually, the world.

Not satisfied simply to produce the best selling piano, Yamaha dreamed of producing pianos equal to the finest instruments, ones that would be welcomed on major concert hall stages. As a result, they worked hard to constantly improve their instruments, and it shows. Currently, Yamaha makes a great grand and upright piano, endorsed by many celebrities like Elton John, Paul McCarteny and David Foster (all “pop” artists…you won’t see many top classical pianists endorsing Yamaha over Steinway or Bosendorfer.) Their U1, U3 and U5 uprights are among the best you can find, and all their grands over 6’ (models C3 – C7 and SF concert grand) are fine sounding, easy playing pianos.

Kawai of Japan has produced a very similar line of instruments, and followed Yamaha in both their approach and their infiltration of America. They still lag way behind Yamaha in sales, stage and recording studio installations, and celebrity endorsements, but some of their larger grands are very nice to hear and play. As a technician, I find Kawai’s to be a little more shrill sounding in the upper half of their high-tension scale, with significantly more “false beats” (errant vibrations) than Yamaha, whose overall sound is much purer.

To the accomplished concert pianist, the finest European and American handmade pianos are still preferable to production pianos; they have that extra finesse to the touch and clear bell-like purity to the tone that production pianos simply cannot match. But it’s safe to say that of all the production line instruments, Yamaha pianos are the best.

Korean Pianos:
If you ‘ve watched a Samsung flat-screen TV or seen Hyundai cars on the road, you know that Korea has been making huge inroads into heavy-industry products sold in the West, and pianos are no exception. Currently, Young Chang & Samick make pianos bearing their own names and dozens of “stencil” names, for the US market. A stencil piano is a now-defunct famous brand name, like Knabe or Chickering, that was licensed by someone rich for it’s well-known reputation, then affixed to the front of the cheap-labor insruments out of Korea or China, to capitalize on the name and make lots of money. Once you own the name, you can do what you want with it, and many oriental piano factories are only too happy to build you a knock-off of the original brand’s design, cheaply enough to fetch a nice profit from unwary buyers stateside. But keep in mind, these “famous name” pianos are by no means up the quality or sound level of their earlier incarnations. Many are really poor. One exception is the Wm. Knabe grand pianos currently being made by Samick, a vast improvement over Samick’s former poor quality instruments, and worthy of consideration.
 

As mentioned in the previous post, one of the main reasons Steinway became such a pre-eminent instryment on over 95% of the concert stages in America, was due to its unique and aggressive artost-endorsement program, started by William Steinway in the late 1800s.

Naturally, every great and small piano maker would love to have several famous pianists endorse their instruments for both stage play and home use. In the mid 19th century, many of the fine piano makers tried to secure these endorsements by literally giving a large grand piano, free of charge, to one or more renowned artists of the day. Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin, and many other superb composers and players received such largess.

Instead, William Steinway entreated upon the great Russian pianist Anton Rubinstein to play Steinway pianos during his American concert tour of 1872, and later convinced one of the greatest pianists ever, Paderewski, to tour America in a railroad car, playing over 100 concerts in under 4 months, all on a Steinway-furnished concert grand.

The result was sheer perfection for the marketing of the Steinway piano. When every piano player from the most beginning student to the world’s most accomplished artists saw these greats playing Steinway and nothing but Steinway, they all declared "I must own a Steinway piano!"

This was the beginnings of the lauded Steinway Artist Program, which provides a fine Steinway grand, delivered and tuned free of charge, to any Steinway Artist currently on their roster, in any major city where Steinways are available.

And to make sure there are many, many Steinways to choose from for major concerts in metropolitan areas, Steinway maintains at least 3 "piano banks" in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. These are acoustically accurate storerooms housing as many as 30 Steinway "D" and "B" models (their two larger concert grands) from which the Steinway artist can audition and choose their favorite for their impending concert, knowing it will be onstage and properly serviced prior to the show’s start. A brilliant concept.

The one downside is that if Steinway catches you performing on a competitors instrument in any American or European city where you could have procured a Steinway for the show, they can drop you from their Steinway Artists roster, a policy which has met with significant controversy over the years.

If you really want to learn an immense amount about the slow, exacting and methodical process of building a fine piano, or just enjoy a fascinating field trip for any pianist, you should plan a trip to the Astoria district of Queens in New York City to tour the Steinway factory. They do have an online virtual tour, and there are documentaries available on DVD that show many parts of the process and factory, but trust me, there’s nothing like watching it done in  person.

You’ll see several strong men bend the outer rim of a new grand piano case around a huge press, the making of soundboards, the precise chiseling of bridges, and so much more. I’ve spent quite a bit of time at the Steinway factory, and believe me, it’s a trip to be treasured.

Aah, now we come to the juiciest post for piano fanatics like me: a discussion of the top fine grand pianos available, at any price, to provide that supreme rich and beautiful sound recognizable as a true piano.

The finest grand pianos are being made in America, Europe (paticularly Germany and Austria) and Japan.

Keep in mind as we go through this list, that there is no “best piano.” This is because no two piano brands sound alike. They each have their own unique tonal quality from brand to brand, and even from model to model within the same brand. This happens as a result of each company’s use of different designs and stringing scales, and different woods and felts for sound production. Even the choice of from which particular forest, in which particular region, the spruce originated for each piano’s soundboard, can make a major difference in the character of it’s sound.

And “best sound” is completely subjective. In stores featuring several brands of fine grands, I’ve seen customers pick the piano I thought I had the tinniest, least attractive sound, even when it was sitting right next to a piano of better quality, richer sound and lesser price! Go figure. It’s because it was the best sound to their ears.

So is a Steinway the best piano? Yamaha? Bosendorfer? None of them are. As long as it’s a quality-built instrument, the best piano is the best one to your ears alone.

American Pianos: Once the home to over 300 piano manufacturers, the USA is no longer a major hub for piano building, with less than 5 brands still manufactured here.

Steinway is still the standard bearer of the finest American grand pianos, and their concert grands (Model “D” – 9 feet long) are still the dominant instrument in residence and onstage for most of the concert halls and orchestras in the country. This is as much due to over 100 years of superb marketing and the securing of important virtuoso endorsements as their wonderfully brilliant sound. Some say their quality control is not up to its early-20th century standards (there was definitely a quality dip during the 1970s, when the Steinway company was owned by the CBS corporation,) but recently they have been backed by investors who gave them carte blanche to return to their original parts and labor quality levels, and I personally feel some of Steinway’s new grands approach the magnificence of their "golden age."

There are also Steinway grands built in Hamburg, Germany, but they sound and feel quite different than the New York version, with a German-made Renner action and a darker tone. Many Americans who grew up on recordings by Rubenstein and Van Cliburn, and concerts at the famous American symphony auditoriums like Carnegie Hall, feel that a New York Steinway is “what a piano should sound like.”

Another legendary American brand, Baldwin, has existed under the shadow of bankruptcy for decades. Recently, they were bought out by the Gibson Guitar Co., and their current pianos are of questionable quality, with many of the steps in manufacture being outsourced to countries outside the USA

Prior to World War II there were many fine American piano manufacturers, with well-known names like Knabe, Mason & Hamlin, and Chickering – an original Boston brand that preceded Steinway in New York by two decades. Financial strains caused many of these fine brands to be conglomerated under the Aeolian Piano Corporation in the 1950s, and then fail altogether a few decades later. Mason & Hamlin was a superior piano, on level with early Steinway and Baldwin instruments, and they are currently back in limited production. Knabe is now being made by Samick in Korea, and Chickering became a second line for Baldwin. None of these brands quite equal the quality of their past.
 

Two drawbacks of even the finest uprights are in the travel of their sound and the travel of their hammers-to-strings. Upright pianos sound different than grands (some say less resonant or more “boxed-in”) for two reasons:

1. They are indeed boxed-in, with the sound needing to emanate mainly from the soundboard in the backframe, which is often right up against your wall. On grand pianos, the soundboard is more free-floating, to send vibrations both upward and downward, with sound resonating through the entire space around the piano.

You can keep the top lid lifted open on an upright, which will create more rich tone emanating from it, but eliminate the possibility of using the top of the piano as a knick-knack shelf or lamp stand. Some of the more ornate uprights available, like the Schimmel pictured on the previous post, have lids that hinge at one side instead of the back of the piano, and raise up like the lid of a grand piano, with a miniature prop stick to hold it aloft.

2. When the hammer strikes the strings in to vibration, it’s knocking them into plate & bridges, not away from them like in a grand action. Many people, even piano technicians, forget about this critical point, but it definitely results in a different, less open sound when knocking a string into its contact points instead of “lifting” it off them.

As for the difference in upright vs. grand touch, if you view a model of each one’s action, it’s easy to see why the grand’s action is more responsive. In a grand, each hammer lays on it’s back, and has gravity to help it fall back to re-play position. Plus, each grand mechanism has an extra spring-loaded lever caled the repitition that lifts the hammer high after play, so the jack (the stick of wood that actually pushes the hammer to the string) can get back under sooner. To refresh our memory of how this works on a grand, heres a re-post of that animated grand action model from our "It Plays, It Vibrates, It Sings!" post:

Now here’s a model of an upright piano action, where you can clearly see the vertical, non-horizontal, gravity-aided positioning of the hammer, mechanisms and string:

As you can see, the vertically-positioned hammer gets no help from gravity or grand repetition levers, requiring an extra spring and "bridle tape" to pull it back into replay position.

This is not to say that an upright piano cannot make a fine musical instrument in the home. For most players, including those with good ears and young students practicing their fingering and control, both the sound and the touch of a good upright is similar enough to a grand to be a non-issue. To many, the difference is not that huge, and indeed there have been more than a few pop albums recorded on upright pianos, in studios where no grand was available.

A well-built and well-regulated upright can be excellent for students in the early and intermediate levels of study. But at the point where a good student of piano is working on advanced concert pieces, preparing for conservatory or the concert stage, or just working to refine their key touch control of the keys to deftly reproduce the softest triple-pianissimo, the loudest fortissimo, and the rapidest trills and flourishes, they must own or practice on a grand action.

When shopping for a new piano, you’ll be subject to the noisy ballyhoo of all the area’s dealers telling you that they sell the best brands (“We have Steinway!” “We have Yamaha!", "We have the best prices, so just pass by the other dealers and come right here.”) Ignore all that, just compare, compare, compare and hone in on the piano that feels and sounds best to you, regardless of the hype around any particular brand name. Here’s a secret: There is no one "best" piano brand. There are many excellent piano makers, and we’ll list some of them below, but, like cars, the most expensive or prestigious brand name isn’t always the best. You have to "test-drive" a bunch and find the best for you.

First you must decide if you are buying an vertical upright piano (the kind that fits against the wall) or a grand (the kind that stands on three legs.) Obviously, space & price considerations will come into play, but remember the #1 rule from our last post…buy the biggest piano you can afford and have space for. If you really don’t have the space for even a baby grand, there are tall uprights – 48” to 54” – who strings are as long or longer than some petite grands, and they sound wonderful, though they don’t have the repitition-action of a grand (covered later)

Of course, as a piano fanatic, I’m partial to grand pianos, and space considerations simply don’t apply. I once lived in a single-wide trailer with my wife and son, and when it came to the question of whether we could fit my 6’ grand in the “living room”, well, there simply was no question…in it came. Sure, we had to eat on it sometimes…

But for those who are fully satisfied with the sound of an upright piano, or simply cannot squeeze in a grand, here’s some of your best choices:

Yamaha – any of their taller uprights, like the U1, U3 or U5 models, are fine pianos
Schimmel – the uprights by this great German piano-maker are exceptionally beautiful and superb quality!
Steinway – their full size upright is legendary, and expensive, but well worth it if you appreciate their quality and sound
Kawai also makes good uprights, though their sound quality is a bit below Yamaha
Knabe, a grand American piano name, is back in business, and even though they are now being made in Korea, their larger uprights are well-made and stunningly beautiful
Charles Walter is an American company that makes fine uprights

Here’s what some of them look like:

A piano is a mighty instrument, with even the smallest spinets weighing a few hundred pounds, large uprights and grands coming in at over a thousand pounds, and they take up a good amount of space. Even in a large living or family room, your piano can often be the dominant object in the room.

They all produce a pretty big sound, and they all can cost a pretty penny. Cheap Chinese-made uprights can be as little as $3000, long Austrian concert grands can set you back over $150,000 (yes, that’s the right amount of zeros,) and everything in between.

Buying a piano isn’t like buying a new flat-screen TV or your next pair of designer jeans – it’s a beeg deel! You have to plan your space considerations and sound levels (throughout your house, and your neighbors if you live in a condo or apartment,) and be prepared to fork over a sizable amount of cash. And there’s soooo many models and sizes to choose from.

So how do you make this considerbale purchase a little less daunting and a little more pleasurable? There are a few simple rules when it comes to comparing and purchasing a piano. Stick to these formulas below, and you’ll do fine…you’ll even really enjoy the experience.

1. Always purchase the biggest, newest piano you can afford and have space for. Why? Because it’s a fact that the sound gets noticeably richer with each foot of string length you add (piano tuners joke that the defintion of a piano is "anything over six feet",) and new, because it’s pristine and comes with a full warranty in case anything isn’t quite right.
 
2. If buying a new piano, buy only from a reputable dealer. Avoid the grey market or “outlets”, deal only with long-established piano stores that have been granted the franchise for a least two top-name brands. They have too much at stake not to treat you right.

3. There are only a handful of really good piano brand names left (there used to be scores of them in the U.S. alone.)  Which is sad, but if makes your choices a lot easier. My next post will cover some of the better brands. Stick to those fine instruments, and don’t be tempted to lay down good money for some new-fashioned or “off” brand.

4. Set aside a least one full day, or more, to visit many stores and try out many instruments. Which means that…

5. The piano player (not just grandma & grandpa) must be present. Whether it’s the lesson-taking kids, or an experienced adult player, you are the one that’s going to have to listen to and love the sound of it every day. So the actual players(s) need to be present to compare piano after piano. If you’re just the parent or the "money", don’t even think of picking it out for them, let them try and listen to many pianos!

6. Never pay MSRP retail price. Good dealers compete for your business, and there’s room to wiggle. Don’t ask for “cost +10%,” you won’t get it, but haggle a bit, and insist on a matching bench, a free first tuning, and maybe even free moving or no sales tax.

7. Buy the piano you like the best! Once you’ve played a bunch of them, you’ll know which one it is, I guarantee you. It’s too large an important a purchase to compromise – you have to absolutely love it! Buy the one you want and don’t spend days vacillating or rationalizing about the others.