Upright Piano Pros & Cons

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.

For more check out these related posts

• Reliable Upright (Vertical) Pianos