Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum The best study vertical piano for a conservatory

Practice studio instruments serve a variety of needs in a conservatory. Yamaha's hybrid models are excellent for many of those needs but still falter in one important area.

Pedal simulations & speaker technology are still inadequate to help an intermediate player develop into an advanced player on anything other than a good quality, acoustic piano.

Once a pianist has already reached an advanced level with significant experience on acoustic pianos, the hybrids make both excellent tools and, because of their conveniences, nice performance instruments.

I can see merit and wisdom in having a couple of hybrids included in the stable of instruments, but I believe the majority of instruments should be acoustic. It's what students need a the conservatory level to reach their goals.

I live in the real word too. I make my students play on my Mason and Hamlin, and I demonstrate on my Bechstein which is really my second piano. Yes, they get the better one, because it never lies, and reveals every sin. The same simply cannot be said even for these vastly improved electronic instruments.

I can honestly state that I have played thousands of hours on both types of pianos, acoustics and hybrids.

May I ask how many hours you've logged on a hybrid?

Hi Dave,

Enough to know the difference. I certainly would never perform Mozart or Debussy on one on stage, or chamber music, or solo with an orchestra on one.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for sending me a message about this post and inviting me to chime in. It seems to me that you feel that you're making not only a reasonable and logical suggestion, but also one that is quite modest. You're dismayed that hardly a soul (the exception being the eminently sensible Sam Bennett) is willing to give you an inch - to simply acknowledge that what you're saying has even a bit of merit.

I can sympathize with your frustration. I make suggestions to all sorts of people all the time. Some of them even pay me handsomely for my advice. But I don't have enough hairs on my ample mane to count the times that the most brilliant of my ideas aren't given the time of day by anyone.

Sometimes I persevere in spite of the naysayers, in spite of the overwhelming consensus that I'm tilting at windmills. And I can assure you that there is no greater satisfaction than proving them all wrong. But more often than not, I just tell myself that I'm ahead of my time and wait for time (and the efforts of others) to do the proving for me. (And, of course, my ideas are not all brilliant; some turn out to be pretty dumb).

The N2, to my mind the hybrid of choice for the conservatory that can afford it, and the NU1, the hybrid of choice for the conservatory on a tight budget, are slowly but surely making their way into practically every school that we work with in the NY area (and into many other schools across the country). The overworked techs who service the schools' pianos tend to adore them - as do many students who appreciate being able to hear what they're playing without an assault of sounds from neighboring instruments.

As more and more conservatories slowly add hybrids to their stables of pianos, the conventional wisdom (no matter how widespread and certain) will be put fully to the test. My prediction, Dave, is that you'll be proven right. Hybrids won't (at least not in the near future) serve every need of every school, but they will serve an important enough need that eventually there will hardly be a piano department that doesn't have at least a few of them.

Full disclosure: Faust Harrison Pianos is in the business of selling Yamaha hybrids (as well as all sorts of acoustic pianos). So we profit, either directly or indirectly, whenever a school buys a hybrid.

Side note: Some of you may wonder why I haven't been here for the past few years. It's not because it stopped being fun, but because it was taking too much of my time. Thoughtful writing doesn't happen quickly (at least not for me) and it's hard to avoid engaging (and re-engaging) with people who say favorable things about me or my company or about my ideas and commentary. It's even harder to avoid dialogue (sometimes extensive) with people who say unfavorable things. Maybe one day I'll retire from my day job and re-establish myself here - but I don't think this will happen any time soon. Thanks to Yamaha and Steinway and the steady stream of extraordinary musicians and artists that keeps coming by, the day job keeps getting better. Drop by and take a tour of our White Plains, NY showroom and factory and see for yourself. If you mention that you're from PianoWorld and I'm anywhere in the vicinity, I'll take you on the tour myself.

Most, if not all conservatories have rooms full of digitals for teaching basic keyboard skills. There are rooms that a real piano cannot be installed. We have a room that is used by cello ensembles. They ask for a real upright in there regularly. I have to leave the digital in there because the acoustic of the small room emphasises the soundboard reflection of any upright and interferes with the ensemble and rings on when they finish even when there isn't a piano in the ensemble. Digitals definately have their place.
I don't think anybody here has dismissed them without "giving an inch". They are not a substitute for even an upright as a practice piano for a serious pianist and we made that precise distinction.

This very reasonable discussion was interrupted by the spurious claims of some promotional videos that really proved our point.

Which speaks exactly to my point. Nowhere in my post did I mention the word "digital"; nowhere in your response RXD do you mention the word "hybrid". You say that "digitals definitely have their place" but you don't even acknowledge that "hybrids definitely have their place" too. No wonder Dave Horne is frustrated. But that's okay. The real world is rapidly learning the difference and buying hybrids in ever-increasing numbers. Conservatories and piano departments are slowly adding hybrids to their piano collections in addition to their "digitals".

As I've stated many times, I am aware and can appreciate, of course, the differences between a hybrid and an acoustic. I owned a C3 for 12 years or so and before that a UID upright that I used 20 years.

I have always had the idea of a real grand piano action married to a sampled grand. About 14 or 15 years ago I played a theater job and the piano I played was the first generation Yamaha hybrid, the GranTouch. I traded in my C3 for that model within a few months. My playing didn't suffer and the joy of having a perfectly in tune piano every morning was greatly appreciated by me.

I realize that everything in life is a trade off and for my purposes, I can live with those trade offs. For me the action comes in first place with the sound a very close second place.

When I played that GranTouch for the first time, I was unaware that Yamaha had introduced that hybrid a few years before. While hybrids will never replace a concert grand on stage, they, at least for me, provide me with a piano I can live with. I am planning to buy the NU1 just to have another action in the house to play on. I personally find upright actions more difficult to control than grand actions, but maybe that's just me.

When I was in college as a classical organ major, I would take my lessons on a pipe organ, at home I practiced on a Hammond B3, and at school (Temple University) on a very modest Allen digital organ. We just made do with what we had to work with.

Many of us have expressed an opinion in answer to a direct question by the OP.

What becomes frustrating is when other members try to convince us that our opinions are wrong. Disagreement is fine and it is for the OP to make the decision. Address your opinions to the OP, not to other members. We are capable of making our own assessments and formulating our own opinions.

What Marty said!

Another thing to consider is that the faculty at the conservatory will have a lot to say about the instruments to be installed. These, I would imagine, are among the top teachers in the nation. I doubt they will be supportive of installing anything electronic in the practice rooms unless they are composers, in which case they'll have an electronics lab all to themselves which won't be in the practice rooms.

Oh, and another thing. All these suggestions "pro" would be a little more digestible if you guys had ever had any experience preparing an advanced student for a major contest, audition, or a concert appearance of any kind before a paying audience/critics. This is something I do with my students on a regular basis. Marty does too, and so does Joe, et cetera. Since we've all done that with some success, we find it difficult to believe that you don't value our collective experience or respect our opinions.

From my perspective, it just sounds like you two are trying sell more electronic PSOs.

Yours in all sincerity,

Irving, thank you for pointing that out. I went shopping for a hybrid for a shut-in friend of mine 3 years ago. I finished up with a Quietime (I think that's the term) upright for depth of tone on the real side and more realistic damper timing feel on the electronic side. Now that she has her own free standing property, she never uses the electronic side and may Trade it for a large grand now that she has the room, mainly because the hybrid action is compromised.

Is Quietime an example of the type of hybrid you are refering to?

If it is, I didn't even think of it as an option because price is an issue in this thread and hybrids are ( naturally) much more expensive. I did give some thought to its usefulness in the Conservatory that she attended when she was revising her will so I have considered this.

I am familiar on a daily basis with sound bleedthrough in modern practice rooms, Pianos, grand or upright do not present a problem. (Remedial saxophone does).

Those are the reasons I didn't even consider hybrids as a viable proposition. If I am out of date in my thinking or otherwise misguided, please bring me up to date and I will go to the local dealer with my faculty head next time we lunch.

It seems to me that this emphasis (by a couple of people here) on 'hybrid' rather than 'digital' just dodges the question of exactly what classical pianists look for in a serious instrument to develop and perfect their interpretation, and goes along with what Yamaha wants potential customers to do - to forget that what they're playing a digital. When all is said and done, the AvantGrands are digital pianos: nothing in their sound generation remotely simulates what accomplished pianists would get from playing on an acoustic, vertical or grand.

I've just returned from a trip downtown, where I dropped into the Yamaha store to play their AGs and NU1, then immediately down the road to Steinway Hall to play their uprights (which I'd avoided in favor of their grands whenever I'd visited previously). There was a world of difference between what I could get out if those 'hybrids' and the real pianos - even the smallest verticals. The 'hybrids' don't even come anywhere close to responding to one's touch like any of the acoustics.

When all is said and done, I have to agree with Artur Pizarro - he loves his AG for technical work, including working out fingerings in new pieces, and ironing out technical problems in tricky passages with endless repetitions without worrying about annoying anybody. (You don't need a real piano for that, and practising hard octaves and chords endlessly will keep your piano technician/tuner in regular employment.) Not for serious interpretative stuff or perfecting your tone. In other words, 'hybrids' are ideal if you've also got an acoustic - preferably a grand - that you can also play on regularly. If you're a serious classical pianist, and have only got 'hybrids' to learn and practise on, even in your conservatoire, you're not going to get far.

Hi Irving,



To be clear, you did not mention "digital". We, the "naysayers" used the ugly, scathing word.

Let's just be honest. These "hybrids" are digital keyboards. With a glorified action. That still does not completely or perfectly imitate the action or tonal response of a grand piano.

There! I said it. Look, it's a great marketing gimmick. And to be perfectly candid, they do look pretty. I give it a shelf life of about 10 years.

When Juilliard or Eastman calls you to replace all their practice room acoustics with hybrids, you let us know.

With every good wish,

P. S., has it occurred to you that being a dealer and offering such an opinion is a conflict of interest, and therefore a problem?

Thank you Ben!

RXD,

Not at all. Quietime simply mutes the strings of an acoustic piano and replaces the sound of the strings with a synthesized sound that can be heard through headphones. It's an add-on to an acoustic piano; it doesn't transform the piano into a hybrid piano. A hybrid piano has no strings, no pinblock, and no dampers. But it has a high-end grand piano action - even the N1 and N2 models that look like uprights. The sound can be heard through headphones, but it can also be heard through very-high-end speakers.

The clear advantage of a hybrid over a digital is the real grand piano action.

The advantages of an AvantGrand hybrid over an acoustic upright are: grand action rather than upright action; never needs to be tuned; is much less affected by typically poor conservatory-type environments; can be used with headphones when bothering others or being bothered by others is an issue.

There's no argument that a student who's aiming for a performing career must have access to high-end acoustic pianos. His or her piano needs will not be satisfied by a hybrid. But if the school's piano tech is spending a lot of his or her time maintaining the practice room pianos that are being used for myriad purposes other than for the needs of aspiring piano soloists, then what? The aspiring pianists get to practice on good (even great) acoustic pianos that often feel and sound terrible.

From: laguna_greg. Responses from Irving are in red.

Let's just be honest. These "hybrids" are digital keyboards. With a glorified action. That still does not completely or perfectly imitate the action or tonal response of a grand piano. Regarding the action, I disagree. The "glorified" actions in AvantGrand pianos are real grand piano actions that are superior to practically any upright action and also to many of the grand piano actions that are found in many practice room grands.


P. S., has it occurred to you that being a dealer and offering such an opinion is a conflict of interest, and therefore a problem? I agree that we must all be sensitive to potential conflicts of any sort. However, I don't recall offering an opinion. I was very careful to state just the facts and to make a prediction that I clearly identified as a prediction. I also wrote a very full disclosure in the text that goes well beyond the usual disclosure. I wonder: Do you make an issue about potential conflicts when my good friend Rich talks about his Cunningham pianos or when other dealers talk about the pianos that they carry?

Now Irving my friend,

That's disingenuous of you to say that. You've been offering all kinds of opinions this morning. You know you have.

Greg,

Irving has offered opinions, yes, but not in any way trying to push a sale or recommend a specific brand. The opinions of the professionals in the piano business are welcomed and usually supply some excellent insight. As long as the affiliation is listed, each member can evaluate the response accordingly.

What they are no allowed to do is say "buy this," "buy that," or "shop from my store."

You're giving your own opinion there, not facts. And you're practically quoting from Yamaha's advertising blurb, which isn't strictly accurate.

The AG action is a modified grand piano action. On real grands, the key weight is slightly less when the sustain pedal is depressed, because the finger pressing down the key no longer has to lift the damper up off the strings. There are no dampers in the AG action (because there are no strings to dampen), so you don't get that.
And on real grands, the keyboard shifts to one side when you press down the una corda pedal. Not so on the AG.

So, let's stick to the facts, not Yamaha's advertising.

Hi Marty,

You are quite right. I have no wish to stifle the opinions aired here.

However, I am more persuaded to Ben's view of the recent turn in the conversation.

I beg to differ. What I said was: The...actions in AvantGrand pianos are real grand piano actions (true)that are superior to practically any upright action (true) and also to many of the grand piano actions that are found in many practice room grands (true). The fine-point differences that you mention may be of some consequence to some pianists, but not at all to many others. And I notice that you don't dispute the main points that I made: that these actions are superior to practically any upright action and also to many of the grand piano actions that are found in many practice room grands.

As to your point that on real grands, the keyboard shifts to one side when you press down the una corda pedal, isn't it disingenuous that you fail to note that on "real" uprights (to which we're comparing the hybrids), the keyboards also don't shift?