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No, travel piano that would easily fit in the trunk of our car. Our P-120 hogs the entire backseat, and to do that it must be propped up above the rear hand rests - finally getting the door closed can be rather hair-raising.

Thanks for all the responses.

I don't live in a sister city so that's probably not an option.



You've given me some ideas now. I very well may buy a used NP-30 and modify it so the speakers are removable. I could even ditch them completely in favor of a good set of good computer speakers that would attach to the piano. The length is much more an issue than thickness for shipping.

At this point I'd get a P-85, chop off the top octave, remove the speakers, and build it into a small flight case.

From the pictures, it looks like you might be able to essentially "hacksaw off" the right speaker and save some length there. But the section of the cabinet that houses the left speaker also appears to house the power and output connections, the power switch and the volume control, so that would require some significant surgery.

This is exactly what I was thinking as well. As long as there is enough room inside, the controls can be moved with surgery.

I think that sawing apart an NP-30 is a spectacularly bad idea.

You could also just buy the NP-30 and a very tight soft bag and rollers.
Arrive early at the airport with someone holding the NP-30 bag while you check in.
Then go through security with it. Board as soon as you are allowed to with the NP-30 bag trailing as vertical as possible next to you opposite the side that boarding passes are being collected. Try to stow NP-30 in overheads (this will work on a number of planes including the latest Airbus). Otherwise ask if it can be put vertically into the forward crew closet.

If at any time you are stopped by crew about your long bag, explain that it is a musical instrument destined for charity and that given its small size and low weight (although long) you and your Ecuadorian recipients would really appreciate helping you get the instrument there.

If you are nice and you have the right crew, it will be ok. They might ask for it to be gate checked and placed in the hold with other large carryons. At the very worse they will tell you that it is only possible to check it in an IATA case and pay the fees at which point you can simply abandon it.

Your total cost is then just the NP-30 and the bag and you will either get it to Ecuador or you won't.

Alternatively, you could give the $400 in cash to your local contacts towards saving for a decent digital piano.

I ended up buying a used 88 keyed Casio PX-130. I'm going to be taking it apart this weekend to see what I can do.

How much is a one way passenger ticket? I know 'cellists will book a seat for their 'cello.

Well, I hope I won't have to go down that road. I'm exploring several possibilities to get the width down on this piano. For your information, an extra ticket would cost between 3-5 times the cost of what I paid for this instrument. Unfortunately, a one way passenger ticket is the same price or sometimes more than a round trip ticket.

I remember a few years ago listening to a radio show about it, and someone got a child's rate for their 'cello as it was new and they put its age on the ticket buying system, and someone else from the same orchestra had to pay full fare as they had a 200 year old 'cello so that was classed as an adult

Let us know how it turns out.
At the very least it will all be fodder for some more 'crazy gringo' jokes in South America.

Thanks for being positive. One must remember that Ecuador is a very poor country so a person must go there with the mindset of finding ways to make do with little.

Mr. Hall, I admire your determination. I hope the dp reassembles ok in Ecuador. I think the suggestion of buying a seat for the dp (even a round-trip one, if that costs less) is a good one. It would save you a lot of trouble.

Yes, let us know how it all turns out!

Quoting myself here. the best thing is simply to buy the piano. Leave it packed in the factory box and just pay the airline the $$. It is not that much. It will be more like $50 not $100 and the factory box offers good enough protection from rough handling Much more than any gig bag.

And NO you can NOT cut a piano down to a smaller size. The case is designed so that all those parts work togethe to make it rigid. The ends work like diagonal bracing on a house.

You are working way to hard to save to few dollars

OK one more idea. Buy it here and give it to someone to keep for a weeks or so. Then when you get to the place have the other pperson ship the piano via UPS orFedEx and you pick it up at your end. Better I think to just give the airline $50.

I agree with you, ChrisA.

Well just to follow up, I ended up buying a used Casio PX-130. I bought it for a big discount since there were a couple of notes in the upper register that were stuck and 1 note that did not work. So once I got it home, I proceeded to open it up to fix the keys and see what could be done to shorten the piano for shipping. I fixed the note that didn’t work and fixed the keys that were stuck. Closer examination revealed that there is nothing I can easily do to get this piano under the 62 linear inches so I’m just going to pay the extra shipping and put it in a regular digital piano soft case. The piano plays well and sounds reasonably well for what it is. My biggest complains regarding the sound is the notes decay too quickly and there is a very noticeable break between notes 20 and 21 like on a Steinway B. They should have sampled a piano that is better scaled. Anyways, for anyone who is interested, here are some pictures that show the innards of a Casio PX-130.

Like the photo's, thanks. Always nice to see inside someone else's taken apart DP :-)

Let us know what it winds up costing to get there and in what condition it arrives.

Nekkid Pikshures!

I see some toes in picture #4 and it's not clear to me how they were they incorporated into the Casio before you disassembled it. Were they part of the keyboard assembly or the electronics? Did they have a ribbon cable going to them? Is the secret to their sound some kind of voodoo human sacrifice? Where are these things manufactured, Haiti?

And thanks to his camera embedding GPS coordinates in the photos, we now know Ed is actually living on a golf course in Oxnard!