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I'm in the process of looking for a piano and am interested in all advice and helpful hints, both on the piano itself and on preparing the room.

Growing up, I played a low-end console which my parents sold 20 years ago prior to a major move. For most of the past 30 years I've just played whatever was handy--piano, harpsichord, what-have-you. I read music (treble, bass, C-clef, lute tablature) but on piano I mostly improvise. I'm guessing the sheet music I'd buy would be a rather eclectic mix.

My house has a room better suited to a grand than an upright. This room has a 10' ceiling, windows at one end, hardwood floor, and about 9' between windows and a large doorway. I haven't measured the whole room but the 9' length is pretty much where the piano would go in order not to obstruct traffic between the room's two doors. (None of the walls is really long enough for an upright as the longest bit is 4'6".)

The most tempting choices I've seen in my (fairly low) price range are a Young Chang and some Hailuns. It is hard to compare them as they're not in the same store. These makes seem to play better for me than comparable Kawais. However, I'm also aware that the acoustics in the stores are nothing like the acoustics at home.

I'm the primary person who would play the instrument. While I have a fairly broad musical background, I have no ambitions as a performer or even composer. When there's no piano, I don't play and don't think about it; when there's one around, I can easily play for an hour or more a day. A significant number of my friends are composers or musicologists, but they all live in other states, so they'll only occasionally play my piano.

So... thoughts and suggestions welcomed.

Something to think about... IMHO the shorter the grand the less satisfying the sound, especially in the low bass. A tall vertical can have longer bass strings than a "baby" grand & a good 50" vertical will out-play most small grands.

Now certainly the appearance of a grand makes a statement and a vertical is just a large box with a keyboard protruding out one side --- but in the end it is the sound that matters, not the appearance.

If you're really serious about a small grand don't settle for anything under 5'. In the end buy what really pleases your ear. When trying out pianos have someone else play (especially if it is a grand) and you listen at the tail end --- you'll be surprised how different the sound seems then when you are on the bench and playing. With verticals you get the sound feeding right back to you - in your face, so to speak, but grands are different and they project their sound into the room, especially from the tail end of the instrument.

I wish you well on your piano search. A good piano will speak to you and I believe you will find yourself called back to spending time at the keyboard more and more --- at least that's what has happened to me once I purchased my first good grand.

With hardwood floors and open corridors, the piano will sound more "live" than in the store. Even a 5'5" is going to deafen others at home You might find larger pianos with better tone in the bass and treble, and strangely, they don't sound much louder. I think that's because a 5'5" is already over the volume threshold You might want to put in a rug before the piano gets home.

Good luck you must be excited!

Thanks to both of you, I hadn't thought of listening at the tail end while someone else plays. I do want a rug in there, but haven't yet seen the right one (I've only had the house a few weeks).

Before measuring the room, I had simply assumed I'd get a vertical piano, but when I measured, it became clear that (rare situation) a grand would fit better, so why not go for it. I'm not all that fussy about the instrument's looks, because the room already has plenty of character empty, which will only be enhanced when books and piano go in. Loudness isn't a major concern (I hope) since this is a house rather than an apartment and I don't play as loudly as I did when I was ten. With 9' minimum for the piano's length (the room is 16-1/2' at its longest point), I could go above 5' if I found the right instrument at a price I could handle, but there aren't that many to choose from locally that are in that lower price range. Unfortunately I keep forgetting to ask the model numbers of the pianos I test.

One other question: I had planned to situate the piano with the player facing the windows, but standing in the space this morning I wondered whether it might be better for the player to be back to the windows and get natural light on the music (the other way, the overhead light would be well situated). The windows face east and don't seem to get very strong sun.

Getting natural light on the music would be nice. The way my grand sits, I face the window and unless it's bright outside, the music rack is shaded and needs artificial light most of the time.

Also, get the largest grand your space and budget will allow, if you have to go with a well maintained used grand. You'll be happier in the long run.

I've now had a chance to go back and take another look at the local piano options. The Young Chang looks short (this time I forgot my measuring tape) and I didn't see a model number but the serial is YG0129017 if that is of any help. I have enjoyed playing it, but this time other pianos were fresher in mind and I might lean toward them, although I'm offered the best price on the Young Chang.

The largest grand I've tested in my price range is a 6'1" Hardman, for $5650. Unfortunately, when I go from it to 5' Hailuns, I'm inclined to think the Hailuns seem better despite being a foot shorter. They are certainly more expensive. I also tried a used (1993) 5' Weber which in most ways seemed very comparable to the Hailun pianos except that I noticed the action in the treble was audible. It played nicely, had a good tone, but I don't know whether this (slight) noise is fixable or if it would simply get worse.

What are people's thoughts about these choices? I have some flexibility in my spending but need to be cautious as I have some home remodeling ahead. I'd prefer to buy locally.

When buying used, I would go with a well proven brand, given it has been well maintained. Some of the pianos you mention may not stand the test of time as well as Yamaha, Kawai, Baldwin, etc.

Without a doubt, the quote above captures the general concensus. However, today it may be wrong. Here are three excerpts from Larry Fine in a new article entitled Buying a Grand Less Than 5' in the upcoming issue of Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer:

There was a time when, as they say, I wouldn’t have wrapped fish in a grand piano under five feet long. The short cases of these pianos place severe constraints on string length and soundboard design, and often result in instruments with poor tone. Given these pianos’ lack of musical qualities, most buyers have been understandably more interested in them as pieces of furniture than as musical instruments....

Times have changed. While much of the above is still true to some extent, great strides have been made in the intelligent design and construction of small pianos. Piano-scaling software, advances in soundboard design, globalization, and the computerization of manufacturing have all contributed to the ability to produce grand pianos that are compact and inexpensive, yet still fully functional
and satisfying to play....

Today, new grand pianos less than five feet long are made in some three dozen models under more than two dozen brand names. To see how these instruments measure up, I recruited four volunteer pianists from the Piano World online community to test them. The group included both professional pianists and experienced amateurs, and two were also part-time piano technicians....

The new edition of Piano Buyer will be posted online around 9/1/2010.

The community college where I teach has a small, 4’10” Chickering baby grand made by Baldwin in the early 1980’s and was designed by our own Del Fandrich. It is an exceptional sounding little baby grand. I’ve had the privilege of playing it for a couple of events at our college (and tuning it a few times) and it sounds great!

So, I reckon that dynamite does come in small packages on occasion!

Take care,

Rick

yea, I've played some Baldwin M's that were great and others not so much so. Sometimes it varies between pianos of the same make and model.

A bit of history:
I had left the company just after having completed the prototype for this piano and it has long been a source of frustration and disappointment to me that Baldwin was never able to build it to any kind of reasonable quality standard.

The production system was a departure for Baldwin but it was neither revolutionary nor complicated. I had designed both the piano and the assembly process simultaneously; they had to go together. The traditional Baldwin manufacturing process required far too much hand fitting and involved too many awkward and complex manufacturing steps to make an inexpensive piano possible. The new manufacturing process—basically building the complete, functioning piano on a separate inner rim and belly structure before adding the outer rim—was quite simple; it reduced the hand fitting of parts to a minimum and was far less costly. As well, it should have ensured reasonable and consistent quality at a low, competitive price. Since it was based on assembly processes used by many other companies at the time and should not have been overly difficult to implement. (Indeed, I went on to design the Walter grands to use a very similar manufacturing process; it is simple and effective. Walter still uses this process.)

Unfortunately, not long before I resigned and left, Baldwin’s’ last experienced piano engineer had also resigned and the company was sadly lacking in experienced technical personnel. The incoming people gave their best, I’m sure, but it never quite worked. The result was a piano that suffered from wildly varying tolerances and quality—the extent and range of gaffs and snafus that showed up in the production pianos was almost endless.

Still, when built reasonably close to its design specifications and tolerances it was, indeed, a nice little instrument; I’d like to have one myself. I’d also very much like to see an updated version of this design—which I just happened to have in my computer—built by a company with the manufacturing expertise and resolve to do it properly.

This was a small piano, not just a short piano. It was nicely shaped; aesthetically it was designed to fit comfortably into the smaller room. When built properly it had a pleasant, balanced tone quality that was well matched to those smaller rooms. In short, it filled a market niche that in the 1990s was already fairly large and one that has been growing ever since. In spite of the improvements that have been made in the performance of the traditional short pianos marketed today this market niche is still not adequately served.

In the 1990s this piano started out being quite popular—until folks found out about the company’s horrendous quality control problems—and then it died. Because, although it was a nice little piano when it was built right, when it was bad, it was horrid!

Had Baldwin ever been able to work out its production problems I believe the piano would still be popular today. A proven market awaits the first manufacturer willing to put a reasonably well made piano of this size and style into production.

ddf

You are such a tease.

Guilty as charged.

With the supposed (I haven't yet played any newer ones that grabbed my attetion in a positive way) recent tonal improvements to small grand pianos (I'm mostly thinking 140cm, give or take maybe 5cm), I was thinking... If the best designers in the industry (including Del Fandrich, of course, and maybe he could do it himself) designed the best possible 152cm upright (and personally I don't care for narrow cabinets on uprights this size - I prefer a cabinet width at least 163cm, 173cm is good too, probably 183cm width would be my upper limit, with a depth comparble to the old roll player pianos), is it now possible that the small grand's bass tone (all the way down to A0, of course not neglecting the rest of the piano though) would beat that upright as soundly as the upright would beat a Kimball Whitney, "Grand", or other "terrible" spinet?

Still placing arbitrary, unnecessary and, to the artistic eye, unattractive limitations on our pianos, are we? Vertical pianos (of any height) do not need to be much more than 142cm to 145 cm (56” to 57”) wide. Anything wider than this is a waste of space that contributes nothing to the piano’s musical performance.

With any luck, I’ll never be asked to design a 140 cm (4’ 7”) piano. Hopefully these also are going the way of the late, and unlamented, Whitney spinet. I have designed a 150 cm (4’ 11”) piano and I’ve redesigned several others and this is about as short as I want to go.

You are talking about two entirely different types of pianos here. Given the parameters you describe it is probable that the tall upright piano will have, at least potentially, better sound across the entire compass. You are, after all, comparing one of the shortest possible grand piano designs with an upright taller (by approximately 18 cm to 20 cm, or 7” to 8”) than anything currently being produced. I would hope, given that height, something good would come of the scale. As to how well an upright piano of this height would play is a whole other issue. It would need either the longest coupling abstracts ever made—or some mechanism yet to be invented—to operate the action. That, or the pianist is going to have to climb a ladder and sit on a platform to play the thing.

Given enough time (and an R&D budget larger than anything anyone is spending today) I’m sure the technological problems could be overcome. And the piano could be built—the price would be high, however. Given the limited demand for such an instrument—so far as I know there is currently a customer base of one—the MSRP would be in the neighborhood of $80,000 to $100,000. (Due to the limited production run the purchaser would, of course, have the option of specifying side panels in any thickness desired. I’ve never seen side panels on a piano that were upwards of 150 mm (approximately 6”) thick but there is always a first time….)

And this is being compared to a piano that is, by its nature, designed to sell in the lowest priced segment of the market. Hardly a fair comparison is it?

ddf

Thanks for posting reference to this upcoming article. Could you give a bit more of a sneak preview by discussing the "loudness" qualities of these new pianos. Does it follow that a piano of the order of 5' is substantially less loud than one at 6'?

I'm considering replacing my RX-3 which has always been too loud for my room (11'X25'X8') and, above the fifth octave, too harsh for my ears. A smaller, quieter piano, with a nice mellow tone above C5 would be very appealing to me. So far I've been considering the CW175 modified according to the Del Fandrich's specifications, but I'm a little gun-shy ordering an instrument that I would not have had the chance to play. Although this may be OT, has anyone played such a piano?

Returning to the posted topic, I suggest to Calyspospots that he be careful about the "power" of the piano he puts in his room. It is not as easy to calm a loud piano as many posters would have you believe.

I suggest that you have a good voicer work on your RX3. They can work wonders.

Also read the article entitled Making Your Piano Room Sound Grand in Piano Buyer. There you will find a number of easy things you can do in the room to optimize the tonality of your piano to your needs.

If you finally decide to change instruments the CW175 is a great choice.

Several good techs have tried, (even Don Manino) all to no avail. Admittedly, my ears might be more sensitive to "harshness" or "brightness" than most.


I've got rugs, a padded string blanket, and acoustic panels everywhere and I still have to play with the lid closed. I probably have a heavy hand, but I could bang away on my old Kimball mini-grand unscathed.


When I was buying the RX-3, the CW175 was my runner-up choice, but I loved the action of the Kawai keyboard (still do). Since I'm an older and wiser man, I'm really interested in a quieter, less bright piano, which is why I am particularly interested in the recommendations of Del Fandrich, viz. "Ronsen hammers using Bacon felt and voiced so there is no hint of harshness to the tone". If only I could hear such a piano.

It may out-sound the grand, but it won't out-play it.

Grand actions are still a lot nicer than an uprights, regardless of size, that shouldn't be ignored either.

Larry Fine in his last publication very favourately commented on the smallish but actually great sounding 4'10 Ritmueller grands with these pianos completely new by design by German wiz L.Thomma.

The pianos come with top quality Renner hammers and had astounded me [and others..] during last NAMM to the extent that we may decide to become dealers.

http://www.ritmullerusa.com/images/Rit_2009_Grands/Ritmuller-GH148R.pdf

Definitely worth a look, to play and "listen in"

Norbert