Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Can't play to my fullest potential without a good grand

I think if you have dug into the music and know what your intentions are then actual instrument becomes less of an issue. You can try things and possibly some instruments will fail to give full expression, but when you find one that does the magic will happen. I don't believe every minute spent at practice need to be golden moments.

i will agree with you that is the most noblest pursuit, but playing on a Steinway B, every single touch of the keys feels so effortless, and the sounds which were presented to me sang so crystal clear. it truly was like magic how much of a difference it made. i didn't have to concentrate hard on tone, which i believed let my brain concentrate more on hearing myself.

a good grand is like a puzzle piece which just fits so nicely in the musician's brain that wothout it, the brain is forced to compensate for its absence. .2

and i am fully convinced if i were to be able to practice on that piano everyday i could reach for the stars, faster.



you are right, the few pieces i really have down to heart i'm still able to play with full satisfaction,

Maybe...Once a year I go to a place where they have this funny little piano, which is really not much of an intrument. Last weekend I did it again and after me playing a little someone said the piano sounds really nice...and I agree, for the first time I think I did manage to get a decent sound out of it.

But then again, what's the point? It's still far away from the sound and exprerience that I want to get from playing. A pro has to play on all kinds of things, but as an amateur, I will mostly be playing my own piano and I really want to get the best possible sound. Decent just isn't enough for me. I feel so limited by my upright, it sometimes is really demotivating. Only the fact that I know I will get a grand one day keeps me going

Well, I mean if you can play on a better piano you should, in order to learn how to master that action and tone which is the most important. However, I imagine that learning to play on a wide variety of pianos is extremely challenging for the brain to handle and yet it can learn to do so very well with a lot of practice. I imagine by mastering so many touches and adapting so quickly the brain becomes very exercised at the art of touch itself.

Think of how difficult that it must be for the brain to learn multiple systems of muscle memory, touch reaction, and even aural response reaction, AND have to shift and alter them on the fly for all of the subtly different ways that different bad pianos are bad! Every inferior piano is its own unique inferior snowflake with unique defects in touch and sound. Must grow tons and tons of brain cells!

Or, if you can just get yourself a Steinway and afford to maintain it by all means do that! Unless you can get your piano flown with you though you will have to learn how to play on any piano anywhere and get a decent sound. No shame in learning to do the best with whatever instrument you've got.

I agree that it's such a pain and misery for your ears and musicianship, but what can you do? Think optimistically, that's what!

A good piano is easier to control because it has a better action, and it will produce a nice tone even if you aren't paying attention to your touch. On the other hand, you have to work hard to get a good sound out of the bad piano.

If I may turn your analogy around on you, getting a fast lap time in a Honda Civic is harder because you have to work for it, while in the Ferrari you can mash the gas and make up for your crap driving.

If you play a nice piano, you will sound better, and that's why it's easier to play a nice piano.

very excellent points and i do agree with both sides of arguement. i guess we can conclude with a quote from schindler's list; "good things cost money."

I spent my entire childhood playing on a spinet with all the, uh, "versatility" for which spinets are so universally...treasured? I remember when I switched teachers as a young teenager. The new teacher had several large beautiful grands in her house that were not only quite different than what I was playing, but she had weighted the keys on one of them.

Needless to say, it was a very different experience and it was incredibly frustrating to go to her house to play during lessons because it would take me most (if not all) of the lesson to adjust.

But my parents didn't ever get a different piano. I quit a couple of years later anyhow. Anyway, I moved the old spinet from my parents' house into my home after I was married and proceeded to barely look at it for two decades.

I bought a grand piano last year and while it ain't a Steinway, it's a lovely piano and I can't stop playing it. Sometimes I think it makes me sound better. Sometimes I think it reveals all my flaws. But most of the time it has an annoying habit of doing both in the same piece.

I will say this, though. I quit because I was unable to put the right kind of work into piano. I make no allowances for that; that's on me. But I will say that part of the issue was that I never really thought I could play with the control, expression and resonance that the music I was playing deserved. I now know that I had I stuck with it more, I would have been exposed to better and better pianos and had the opportunity to play on them and explore what they had to offer. I remember feeling like I had three choices on my spinet: 1) mf; 2) hit the key sharply and roughly to get anything louder than mf, or 3) nothing at all as anything with a softer touch than mf often failed to sound the note at all. Trills were a disaster.

I really thought it was me. And yes, to a certain extent, it was. But it would have been nice to have been able to get past that and know which parts were me, and which were limitations of the piano. I had to rehearse a piece on a yucky spinet on which not even the pedal worked. After learning it on a better piano, I could tell the difference between the piano and my own shortcomings.

If you've only had one piano for a long time, it's a real jolt at first. But if you can get the opportunity to play lots of different pianos (and even some digitals), the learning curve isn't all that tough. It quickly gets a lot easier. You aren't really learning a large catalog of different touches, you're learning to adjust your input to get the desired output. It can't possibly require a whole bunch of brain power, after all, I'm doing it.... ;-)

I had a very similar childhood experience with our old upright. I really thought I was incapable of playing varied dynamics. Since I knew the instrument was named the pianoforte for a reason, this made me feel pretty useless.

So I played on a 7'4" Bösendorfer last night. Yes, every single thing was better about it obviously, it is a <$100,000 piano. But what I found craziest was the huge, and i mean HUGE difference in the way my Etude 10/1 played. My fingers were flying so fast that I wasnt able to control the speed, my fingers were actually tripping over themselves. The amount of effort it took to play through the arpeggios was way too much of a difference so, that I don't think I even want to return to playing it on a bloody baby gfand

I have never liked blaming the piano unless the strings are broken or keys don't work, then sure...blame the piano. I can't play to my fullest potential without a working piano.

I agree with this, but would like to add one point. My piano has a slightly heavier action than most. I've found it easier to adjust to a lighter action than a heavier one. There are fortunately few pianos with actions much heavier than mine so I usually have the happy opportunity to play on a lighter action. But there was once a time when I met a piano whose action was like driving a truck. That experience was suboptimal.

I wonder if it's the bubinga...

Good pianomusic depends on the pianist........of course you need a normal working and tuned piano.......
The music of a bad pianist is not better on a Steinway-d......

Cheers,
JohanB

I know that feeling, but if you can't do it on every piano that isn't outright broken, then you have room to improve, even for playing on the nice piano.

Sometimes you come across that one (usually very expensive) piano with the action that is just right, and it is incredibly easy to play, but even if you're a pro that's not what you get to play on most of the time.

It's really sweet to play on a wonderful piano in a wonderful room, because the instrument and room help you so much, but... unless we can afford to only ever play on the best pianos in the best rooms, one must contend with reality as well
Glad you had a good concert!

There's an old saying: it's a poor workman who blames his tools.

Most of you all missing the point, and insinuating that i am mistaking "playing to my full potential" with "playing well".

i understand that, but i am talking about making the pieces I know already sing true to the nobility it deserves. Playing once on a 7' Bösendorfer and hearing my repertoire sound like "the first time i ever heard it" was truly an eye opener. like i said in a previous post, i was able to play Etude 10/1 at such a faster speed than I could on the baby kawai, I know what i'm talking about.

And that is the crunch. Most of us have little choice over the pianos we perform on, even if we're able to afford what the OP would call a "good grand" at home.