Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Suggestions needed for additional lighting for music desk

Right now I have one floor lamp (with three adjustable lights)to the left of and slightly behind the keyboard. Since I have developed slight cataracts this lighting is no longer quite sufficient to see the music very clearly. I want to get an additional light to put to the right of and behind the keyboard.

I think the best choice would be a simple contemporary styled wall mounted light with a cord that could be mounted on the wall that is about 6" behind the back of the piano bench. Does anyone have any specific suggestions? I began searching on Amazon but there are hundreds to choose from. Here are two I found that might be OK or at least give you and idea of what I was considering, although I'm not sure if wall mounted reading lamps would work:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0745KLYV...4D8AGRJ89T2VX&pd_rd_w=7gsG5&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076B33Y9...&ie=UTF8&qid=1529431960&sr=1

I might be able to use another floor lamp if it had a very small footprint. Something like this? Again, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0719QYRYD?aaxitk=4KMXg0oDePGMrFB5qkHTgA

THANKS!

I’m a huge fan of the Cocoweb piano lamps. I have a standing one but my teacher has one that clips on the music rack

https://www.cocoweb.com/piano-lamps

I mounted tracks above the pianos and got little spotlights to shine on the music desks from about 6 feet above. Mine are wired in, but you could get a track, mount it on the wall and plug it in. Various heads are available, and you can add more if your eyesight gets worse.

Their floor lamps look great. I don't ever put anything on my piano other than music.

Steve

Just a few caveats on the House of Troy grand piano lamp that attaches to the music desk: vibration from playing loosens the bulbs which is very annoying. The bulb size is unusual and requires a trip to a specialty bulb store. The lamp prevents you from closing the music desk. The lighting is great but I'm planning to replace mine with a House of Troy floor model that has LED lights.

I would recommend you compare with the Cocoweb led floor model before you make a decision: dimmable, fully adjustable and great coverage of the music rack.

Thanks. I’ll check it out!

+1.

I bought this one a year ago ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008KN5JBY ) and couldn't be more pleased. It is overpriced in my opinion, but I don't regret the purchase at all; it works better than everything else I have used.

I bought the House of Troy music desk lamp and put in a warm colored LED T10 bulb from any hardware store. It works fantastic and I am happy with it. . You save money compared to the cocoweb and the light is very good. You can choose exactly what color temp bulb you want. Plus it doesn’t get hot. I haven’t had the experience of the vibrations shaking the bulb loose

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000JZVQSG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_IlLkBb74AVA3N

https://m.lowes.com/pd/GE-40-W-Equivalent-Soft-White-T10-LED-Tube-Light-Bulb/1000247537

Like dogperson, I bought one of the Cocoweb lamps. Mine is a 19” LED lamp that has a slim felt-lined clamp to mount to the music rack (grand piano type only), link here:
https://www.amazon.com/Cocoweb-Blac...9589540&sr=8-1&keywords=gpled19d

I’ve had it for two years now and I really like it. It is so bright that you really need the included dimmer control to tone down the brightness — I use it at less than half brightness. It does the job even for four sheets of music arrayed across the music rack. It is specifically for casting light on the sheet music only, and the only problem is that if you have inadequate light on your keyboard, the illumination from the music lamp will cast an annoying shadow across the middle of your keys. So as a temporary solution for that, I put a tall floor lamp behind the piano bench to cast more light on the keys (as you say you already have). I intended to put track lighting on the ceiling aimed at the keyboard, but haven’t come to agreement with the S.O. on the implementation of that yet, so the temp solution remains.

Bumping my own thread just to see if there are any more recommendations or info/comments about the Cocoweb floor lamp(95% sure I'm going to get that one at this point).

For any who have the Cocoweb floor lamp, how high is the highest part of the LED bulb strip off the ground when you have it set up so that it shines on the music desk? Thanks.

I have mine at 55 inches but the bulb strip can be rotated to be greater than 60 inches

With my current vision it has become more important to light up the whole room. I have a 3 headed floor lamp from Ikea which I aim at the walls and the ceiling. It uses LED bulbs and stays cool. It brightens everything up without creating any uncomfortable visual hot spots. I don't see it listed on their web site, but often their styles go away and then come back in different colors.

If an iPad is possible for you, the backlit screen might be helpful. You can also adjust the size of the music to a certain extent. Of course, the quality of the scans makes a big difference.

I can play from smaller music on the iPad due to the backlighting than I could from even brightly lit paper. I have the iPad Pro, which is large.