Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Can you identify these 7 mystery pianos?

So you think you know pianos. These are seven pianos (seven different brands) playing the Aria from Bach Goldberg Variations BWV 988. Can you identify them by the sound? Whoever gets most correct answer wins! (but no prize )

Piano 1
Piano 2
Piano 3
Piano 4
Piano 5
Piano 6
Piano 7

It's difficult to do this with recordings.Sometimes the accoustics of the room was far better in one room compared to another as well.(or so it seemed)This complicates the process.A piece with a larger range of notes may have been more helpful.Were all of these pianos grands or were some uprights?

I also do not want to be first to guess. 🙃

All grand pianos. I tried to use Soundcloud but a couple tracks got copyright holds, but in the notice they matched them with the wrong artists, lol! Seems that AI is not very good at identifying pianos.

Would it be easier if I list the piano brands? But really, the brands themselves are easy to guess,. there are no obscure pianos here

I doubt even the most experienced dealers or techs can come close. This would be very hard to do even if all the makers/models were listed.

Well, to cast the question another way: does brand X have a unique sound? If yes then one should be able to pick it out from the crowd.

I can only guess #5 is Yamaha and #7 is Steinway.

My uneducated wild guess, #7 is a Steinway

Any chance you can put a photo of the piano's fallboard next to each link? That could clear up some mystery.

Rest assured I will reveal the identities (with proof), but in the mean time let's test our piano id'ing prowess.

How did you record them?

Someone once posted a piece on 3 pianos.The piece was if I remember "The Lover and the Nightingale", so a bigger range of notes.I can remember there was a was a Bosendorfer and an Estonia.(cannot remember the third)
Seven is tricky! 😳
Perhaps if you mention the brands it may be more fun.Just remember some brands have different models which can sound very different to each other.OK!, I would need a piece of paper and pencil....memory not as good as it used to be.

They are recordings of seven different pianists

If I list the brands then you'd only have to guess 6, because the last piano is left - so it's not as fun. But if you had to list 7 different brands chances are it's exactly the same list here.

Maybe you can post the serial numbers? That could help.

But to be serious, for a moment: So far, it looks like no-one's biting at the challenge because it's way too widely defined. Not quite -- but a bit like -- choosing seven people at random and asking us to guess what their names are.

Can you list eight or nine brand/models, and we'd have to choose the right seven?
Or multiple choice for each piano?

ok, just to prove that these are legitimate brands, they are all here in the top 10 list
https://www.europianosnaples.com/the-top-10-best-piano-brands-in-the-world/

I think the sound would have to be extremely unique for that to be true. I doubt many experienced techs or dealers could get all seven correct even if you listed the makes and models. If I remember correctly there have been PW threads were lots of posters couldn't tell an acoustic from a digital.

Okay okay you got me. Part of the motivation for me to do this is that Blüthner has a tag line: "the golden tone". Wow, golden tone? Sounds so magical. Well, Blüthner is one of the seven pianos here! Which one has "the golden tone" ?

Well I will try,Grotrian is number 2 and Sauter is number3.(not Willhelm Grotrian 😁) By the way which model Yamaha is that? Bluthner is number 6.....?

I really am muddled now, however is Bosendorfer number4?
No 5 is Yamaha, I agree with Hakki. Otherwise no 5 is Sauter and it needs voicing?

nevermind, i thought you were reading the top 10 list