Pianos
Its true there is no such thing as a free (or cheap) piano.
There was a guy a few doors up from me who sold his piano to us for 40. It's in very good nick for the money and is finished in French Polished walnut.
However, the down side is that it's all out of tune.
Well, I could pay £45 for a local piano tuner. However, you know me, why pay for somthing when you can do it yourself (it must be my scottish blood).
Well piano tuning is not actually that hard to on a basic slightly imperfect level, but most of my keys are now in tune thanks to a clevely assembled heath robinson socket rench and my electronic keyboard.
However, some of the strings are old and a little rusty. I snapped two of the buggers :(
Still I've read up and I think I'll have no trouble replacing them myself.
Anyone else have a real piano? Any good advice?
There was a guy a few doors up from me who sold his piano to us for 40. It's in very good nick for the money and is finished in French Polished walnut.
However, the down side is that it's all out of tune.
Well, I could pay £45 for a local piano tuner. However, you know me, why pay for somthing when you can do it yourself (it must be my scottish blood).
Well piano tuning is not actually that hard to on a basic slightly imperfect level, but most of my keys are now in tune thanks to a clevely assembled heath robinson socket rench and my electronic keyboard.
However, some of the strings are old and a little rusty. I snapped two of the buggers :(
Still I've read up and I think I'll have no trouble replacing them myself.
Anyone else have a real piano? Any good advice?
Post edited by Scottie_uk on
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Comments
Thanks :D. It's Saturday night, cmon nows not the time for spelling or punctuation
Just because you've managed to tune these rather old strings doesn't mean they will stay that way for long. Usually an old piano is just that - an old piano. Every auctioneer up and down the land groans when he see's one show up in his auction room... (that gives you an idea of their inherent value)
If you like the case you could keep it and replace the piano's internals with a more modern action that will sound better, stay in tune, and be easier to replace when it goes wrong. But that would cost a lot more than an equivalent modern upright piano.
After years of owning an upright piano - I finally bought an electric piano instead. Several reasons - the main one being I rent my home so I may have to move which doesn't work so well with a real piano...
I'm a grade 8 amateur (mostly ragtime and early jazz) pianist and I find a low end electric piano more than suits my needs - It's properly weighted, very sensitive to touch so I don't lose any expression really, I'm just missing a few notes at the extreme ends of the range (which I never use anyway), it never needs tuning and can be moved easily.
The disadvantage is it's made of plastic so you can't hammer out all of Beethoven's sforzando's for months on end without eventually breaking something! (But only a professional pianist would be likely to do this)
Tuning a piano well requires a good ear and a lot of hard work and time (especially if it's out of tune already). You probably overtensioned the strings - that's why they snapped. It doesn't take very much overtensioning to snap even a new string. Piano strings aren't like guitar strings - they are pretty fragile in comparison and many won't even take being tuned a semitone too sharp before snapping (especially if they are old). So turn the pegs s...l...o...w...l...y and be careful not to pull them more than half a semitone sharp. If the piano's been left for years you'll probably need to retune it several times before it actually holds tune.
I have a proper tuning wrench, felts and wedges for tuning and an A440 tuning fork, but to be honest I'd rather have the piano tuner around since he'll do a much better job than me. I did tune the old upright I was given and got it reasonable, though. The thing is you listen for 'beats' - read up on even temprament (which is the modern piano tuning). Start with whatever A440 or middle C. IIRC, to tune from ear, you tune fifths until you've done a whole octave. If you listen really hard to a properly tuned piano you'll notice that when you play a fifth for example you'll hear a beat frequency - just a few hertz. Piano tuners listen for that beat frequency to get the strings perfectly in tune (and it takes some practise to do it right!) There's information on the internet as to the beat frequency you should be listening to (and you can get books on the subject).
However, if (like me) you're not a piano tuner, you can get software for tuning pianos, I have some on my PowerBook - look for strobe tuning software (this will give you a visual representation of how close the note you're playing is to being in tune). It's best to get software specifically for pianos. Tune the string slightly sharp of in tune, and then just back it off until the strobe display is steady. You need to play each note LOUD (as loud as possible) while tuning. You also need to damp out the strings (either the two or one strings of the same note) with the wedges so you can tune one string at a time. Once you have tuned one octave, it's easy to do the rest by ear. There should be no beat frequency when octave intervals are tuned.
I got a baby grand just before Christmas (which made Mr. Wallet smart with pain, any reasonable piano is a fair amount of change to part with) and I've not touched my electronic one since I've had it - it's just so much nicer to play a real instrument - it has all sorts of characteristics an electronic one just doesn't have. Consequently, I play a lot more now (and slowly, my technique is finally improving a bit). Still can't sight read though - not that reading music's a big deal if most of what you play is improvised blues, but I'm trying to learn sight reading to make better use of technique books.
Does velocity sensitive mean pressure sensitive ?
The problem is these keys may not be weighted - and how the keyboard is weighted is vital to learning a good piano technique.
Any experienced pianist who suddenly tries to play a cheap electric keyboard will probably have difficulties getting used to it since it is not weighted at all - If like me they play rags or stride piano (plenty of left hand bounces) they would likely get tennis elbow in their left arm before long.
A real piano is weighted heavily towards the lower end and gradually lightens up through the range - changing depending on which pedals are in use. A grand often shifts all the keys noticeably to the left when you push on the una corda pedal - so only one string in 3 is played. Many piano's also become lighter to play when the sustain pedal is down.
For most use tho' I still think a ?400 - ish digital piano with a decent sustain pedal would be okay for learning. You may want a real instrument at some point in the future - I may do when I finally own my own house. But as I said my digital piano (Yamaha -P60) does the job just fine and is less hassle than trying to move or tune an aging upright...
I generally wouldn't advise people to buy a cheap old upright piano tho'.
Back a few decades ago they were a fashion accessory and loads of people bought pianos that looked nice in the front room but weren't necessarily good pianos even at the time they were bought.
The same low quality piano half a century later after it hasn't been maintained for years is not usually a good buy. Sorry ...
I keep thinking that now I have a real piano, I should sell my old Roland A90, but I just can't bear to part with it - since it's good and portable (for 100 lbs values of portable).
Many hammer action keyboards tend to get worn out or develop faults quite quickly, but the Roland has been absolutely superb - never a problem with it at all, and it's over 10 years old now.
I considder myself to have a good ear for sound, and have had much success tuning the piano.
I may even have ago at fitting the strings myself.
If it was an expensive high class piano there is no way I'd be doing it myself. However, as we are almost broke, the piano is very cheap (well free), I have nothing to loose, in giving it a go.
Winston, thanks for your advice. However, the two breaks I had were not due to over tightening, I'd barely put the wrench on it and it snapped before any real movement had took place. All it took in both cases was me appying very very gental clockwise pressure, building the pressure up slowly so that there was just enough pressure to nove the peg ever so very slightly.
There are a couple of good guides on paino tuning and string replacement on the web.
...or posting on WOS :razz:
Are u subtlely trying to tell us u r Vince Clarke the bald headed genius behind Depeche Mode, Yazoo and that other group with the camp guy in it ( forgot the name ) ?
Erasure.
No I'm not...;-)