Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Is a good acoustic upright worse than a top digital Kawai CA97?

If you think these AP vs. DP debates are bad, try accidentally getting into a debate with some ukulele advocates, who pity those ignorant victims of the musico-industrial complex who continue to play anything other than the ukulele, which is the only pure and honest way to make music.

(I like ukuleles, but not enough to put my DP in the alley.)

We see how individual opinions can get hot on the subject of who's got the biggest DP experience etc., but this thread will also be viewed by many others, who are not yet maybe especially experienced, or are strictly in the mindset of the digital piano they play, or who are tranquilly lured by the digital piano marketing and incessant murmur in these pages about the best this, the best that, etc. These readers might benefit a slightly different idea : regardless of what piano they are in the detail, playing the digital piano is easy, playing the acoustic piano is much more problematic, so don't think you're there when you've achieved something on the digital piano, for it's nothing in comparison to the difficulty you'll encounter on the imperfect, averagely regulated, not very well voiced, backwards or upwards projecting disparate and diverse acoustic piano.

Then if the art we try to perform is playing the piano, why would we admit that for some (actually and sadly for most by the nature of demographics), because they are deprived of the opportunity to exercise on an acoustic piano (and maybe mainly because they are told it's not important or required, see first point), could be as pleased to remain in the digital world, that it would be good enough for them if they didn't intend to perform at a high level etc. This is not the proper approach, if the idea was to spread the art of piano playing, they should rather be told the truth : if you want to be able to play any piano in any condition at any time so that you could no matter how erratic the instrument really is, please yourself and the audience, then you should not consider the digital piano as a good practice tool because you'll never acquire the experience to be able to do on such an instrument.

Then surely you're advocating purchasing an imperfect, averagely regulated, not very well voiced, backwards or upwards projecting disparate and diverse acoustic piano? The worse, the better? Otherwise how can we possibly be adequately prepared?

I've never heard of anything quite so daft.

Yes of course you should get the best acoustic piano you can, be it bad relatively to better ones : if you plan to learn to play any piano you meet, then you'd positively benefit from that much more than playing on even the finest DP and nothing else. And I don't know a single piano teacher that would advise otherwise!

If your plan is to get a fine electronic device, it's a complete different story. And you'll have then a hard time being taken seriously by piano teachers and music schools..

And why would buying the best possible acoustic prepare you any better for playing an imperfect, averagely regulated, not very well voiced, backwards or upwards projecting disparate and diverse acoustic piano than buying the best digital?

You didn't read properly : why would buying the best acoustic piano you can prepare you any better for playing [any piano]?

Now maybe you see the answer is obvious

I see, as from the outset, an opinion expressed as fact.

Is there a silliest thread of the year award here at Pianoworld? If so, come December I'm going to nominate this one.

Actually what you wrote means something like "I see fact", so that's fine for me. Aside from this logic-syntaxic subtlety, go and ask every pianist you can, go and visit any music school you can, ask any teacher, I bet not one in ten will tell you otherwise. If it was not the only and best option, they would all be so silly not to do it otherwise, and they don't indeed.

Again, if we let aside the problem of the sound of the digital pianos, the main characteristics of the piano as an instrument is that you have to master the relation between the keys and the hammer hitting the strings. You cannot learn to do that on a digital piano at all, and playing the piano is all entirely about that : learning to hit the strings with a proper momentum each time. In this regard, playing the notes is common to all keyboard instruments, organ, accordion, etc. So the only specific part of the piano playing is completely out of range of the best of the best digital piano (we could discuss the Yamaha hybrid series at the margin here), and you cannot compensate this, to learn how to play the piano, you need but a piano with a mechanics of keys throwing hammers to strings.

I also like the fact that people who do not understand even what the problem is about this question and call silly awards, almost exclusively have electronic keyboards displayed in their signature.. it might a pure coincidence, it's relevant enough as is though.

I appreciate that English isn't your first language but no, it doesn't mean that.

Pop over to the teachers' forum and make a nuisance of yourself there.

How old are you?

Because everything you write - and I'm wary that immature may well seem a pejorative term - sounds like the misguided hubris of youth.

That and your foolhardy take on what teachers and schools will universally accept...

Here's the point that you, and so many of your ilk miss, in this selective bias, and pseudo elitism. Music is meant to be for all, without boundaries - it is meant to be inclusive. Whenever I talk to REAL musicians, I almost universally find that - it's only people who think they're musicians, but really just play certain instruments that tend to foist these arbitrary boundaries that suit their subjective views.

It's only the worse in the human condition that makes music divisive, with little juntas of self-selecting and self-affirming groups supposedy making the rules.

Are there any demonstrations of this on a good DP?

I see you take it seriously, sorry about that I thought you would laugh as I did, so yes you're right, it's bad to say things people don't like, I won't do it again I promise, and I shall respect whatever clever notion of yours, and now let's pray to the universality of music...

Where mostly physical resonant phenomenons bring us harmonies and joys through rhythm patterns and melodic lines...

None of which physical phenomenons actually are taking place in the digital world however.

As for elitism, indeed I have to confess, I believe offering every music apprentice the opportunity to learn on an acoustic instrument is the only way not to build up one generation of fools over the other.. Oh I'm a complete selective bias myself thinking I am a REAL human being and a musician by accident, but thankfully you opened my eyes about that, thank you, thank you so much!

Long live the optical sensor bringing us music universally!

We're drifting too far apart from the topic, so let's come back to it : will the Kawai CA97 be the star at the Proms this year?

That's pretty predictable - whenever somebody in a debate goes off the reservation, when pushed, it's always "I wasn't being serious, it's all a joke..."

You never answered the question - how old are you?

Look, you only think your question is part of the equation because you misconducted yourself in the thread, then took it too personally, then didn't get the gentle irony of the reply pinpointing the fact, and now you're being insulting and inquisitive, do you really think it's meant to get any more absurd than that in the follow up?

Debate, what debate? The debate was to know whether the Kawai CA97 (extrapolated to DP generally speaking) was better than the best upright you can get for good money out there? It was sure pretty absurd right from the start, but for simply saying so with only very academic and wise points of view and after such a series of surprising positive absurd replies, I've been pretty badly bashed, and it really doesn't matter, but so what now, more of this sort of "debate"? I don't think so

It's been a pleasure, gentlemen, have a good day, absurdity won, I'm off this boat

Mission accomplished, apparently.

That picture is wrong in so many ways.

What's wrong with it?

The picture needs to be viewed via a mirror.

(We are in USA, not UK ).

Not to feed this gobbledygook at all....but counter to this point, I know hundreds of Piano teachers and a major Canadian examining body (Conservatory Canada) that allow piano examinations up to associate level to be taken on certain models of Roland Digital Pianos (HP504, DP-90e and above.)

After an exhaustive evaluation period that included every aspect of piano learning, our instruments were certified several years ago.

So, although you don't know them, you're wrong. Dead wrong.

Jay