I just took delivery a few days ago of my new grand piano, and the winner is......!!!!
But wait......wait.....
First, you have to wade through what we all know is the birthright of every PW poster who has just dropped thousands of dollars, namely a long and meandering tale of
How I Found My Piano(TM).
(Of course, if you’re the impatient type, you can just scroll down and view the pictures at the end, but what fun is that?)
For the rest of you, sit back and enjoy this mere five-part trifle.
I. THE EARLY YEARSI’m a lifelong amateur classical pianist who took lessons for about a bazillion years when I was younger. I didn’t major in music, but I played in honors concerts as a kid, studied with a great teacher in college, all that stuff. After college, just entering the work force, I did the best I could at the time and bought a good mid-level digital piano:
Old FaithfulI can’t say anything bad about it. Not many bells or whistles, but it had great sound, much better even than many of today’s top models, and excellent action as well. Too bad Technics got out of digital pianos. Plus, you could play it with headphones, so you could play late at night without infuriating roommates or apartment neighbors. Of course, it was nothing like a real acoustic grand, but it got me through the next fourteen years.
For years, due both to living arrangements and finances, owning an actual acoustic grand seemed a faraway dream, like winning the lottery. A year ago, however, I decided it was high time to stop living with roommates and strike out on my own. Though I didn’t plan it, I wound up in a tri-level loft with a downstairs bedroom that was well sealed off from the neighbors, and of course the roommates were history. And my incoming was rising.
Hmmmmmm....
II. THE DREAM BEGINSMaybe it was time to look into an actual, honest-to-God acoustic grand. In spite of a lifetime of piano-playing, I only knew a little bit about pianos and brands. I never paid much attention to the stencils on the fallboards in college, which is probably a good thing for those brands, considering the age and condition of the pianos. In fact, my knowledge was not much better than the stereotypes of the general public, which goes something like this: Steinway is the best brand, used by all the professionals, and Yamaha is a Japanese maker of good, reliable low- to mid-level grand. Oh, and other brands of pianos exist as well. That’s probably not far removed from what most of America knows about pianos.
Actually, I knew (or thought I knew) a bit more: Bosendorfer was an expensive alternative to Steinway (some said better), and my favorite piano at the University began with a G (in hindsight, almost certain Grotian). Also, Kawai was another Japanese brand, kind of a runner-up to Yamaha. And finally, my parent’s piano was a Kimball. This was the sum total of my “knowledge” entering the piano market.
However, I definitely do my homework before making a purchase like this. I went on Amazon to look for any books that might be a help in piano-shopping, and soon up came a book called the Piano Buyer’s Guide, by one Larry Fine, which seemly highly rated (perhaps a Tier 1 book?), so I bought it. Also, somehow I stumbled on a pretty extensive Web forum called Piano Word, and bookmarked it.
The Piano Buyer’s Guide arrived. Lots of great info on everything you could possible want to know about pianos, particularly for a geeky, obsesive-compulsive product researcher like me, and I avidly consumed almost all of it. It definitely gave me a shot of confidence and made me feel well-informed walking into a store. Between this and the unruly universe of Piano World, I had a starting point.
III. THE SEARCHBy this point, a game plan was starting to form: I couldn’t afford a high-level grand, of which I was becoming rapidly aware that there was far more out there than Steinway and Bosendorfer. No, instead I would go for a good, late-model used Yamaha C-series, most likely a C2 or C3. When it comes to cars, I only buy used. Why eat all that depreciation, when someone else can do it for you, and you still end up with a great product at a vastly reduced price? I saw no reason pianos should be any different.
I found out about an opera-house fire-sale at a local Yamaha dealer, and went to try out a bunch of Yammies. Used C2 and C3 pianos galore! Some were pretty good, some were, um, not so good, but none of them blew me away. The tone was a little brighter than I liked on the best, and on the worst, it was to the point of being brittle or metallic. I thought the bass was a little under-powered, especially on the C2’s. The action was decent, though not great. I was beginning to feel dubious.
Before I left, the salesman invited me to play on a used Yamaha, an S4, which I had never heard of. Incredible tone, much better action, with a bass that sounded far more powerful that the similar-sized C3’s, and a beautiful singing tenor and treble that had just a little hint of brightness--which I like. It was the first piano that spoke to me, and if I had sufficient funds at the time, this story might have ended right there. But the S4 was priced nearly double the surrounding C3’s, and I didn’t have the funds, so I had to let it go.
So it seemed used Yammies were out. Well, what about that runner-up brand, Kawai? I cracked open the Piano Buyer Guide to find out if they were as good as Yamaha. It turns out the Kawai entry was quite favorable, saying they were every bit as good as Yamaha, if not a hair better. And they had the RX series, counterpart to Yamaha’s C series, and they were said to be a bit more mellow. Perhaps a used RX2 or RX3 was the way to go.
I found a local Kawai dealer and test-drove both a new RX2 and RX3. These I definitely like better than the Yammies. The tone was more mellow, and good throughout the range. I was also extremely impressed with the Millenium III action, the only caveat being that I found it a bit heavy. So a used RX2 or 3 seemed the way to go.
This is probably a good point to mention that, while shopping like the frugal, value-concious consumer that I am, I had occasionally been sneaking my way onto higher-end fare, such as Steinways and Bosies, always accompanied with a vague sense of guilt. (“Yes, I’m interested in used 1990’s Toyota Camrys, but while I’m here, might I also take your 2010 Italia 458 out for a spin? ”
Vroooom-vroooom screeeeeech.....)
"I'll bring it right back. I promise."
Great fun, and definitely better than the mid-level stuff I had been playing, but at the same time nothing absolutely grabbed me, or made me feel like I needed to spend tens of thousands more.
I don’t remember where I first heard about Shigeru Kawai. Most likely it was from the Piano Buyer’s Guide, but it might have been PW. Still, considering how much I liked the RX series, I decided to give the Shigeru Kawai a try, just for fun. I located my local friendly Shigeru dealer and went in, trying not to feel too guilty.
IV. A TASTE OF PARADISEThe salesman there had no qualms about letting me try their only Shigeru in stock, a full-blown semi-concert SK7. I sat down and began to play, and within two minutes was muttering to myself: “this is the best piano I’ve ever played in my life.”
The tone was extremely well-balanced, with all the bass power you could wish for, and a tenor/treble with that sweet bell-like sound, especially at pianissimo, that reminded me of the Grotian back in college. There was an extreme clarity throughout the entire range, and yet still a harmonic richness. I couldn’t find any part of the range, or even any notes, that left me disappointed. Granted, the piano was probably prepped to the nines, but still... This was the first high-end piano I had played that didn’t leave me straining to convince myself that it sounded just a little bit better than it actually was.
And the action! For those who have never played a Shigeru before, I’ll try to describe it. When it comes to touch, we all know the dilemma--a light touch is easy to play fast on, but can also feels frivolous and difficult to control, whereas a heavy touch feels more substantial and offers more control, but can bog you down, like playing through mud. To me, the Shigeru action was a little on the heavy side, for great feel and control--and yet somehow still amazingly easy to play fast on. The keys felt wonderfully springy. They rebounded under my fingers like gazelles, ready for the next strike. Also, I could run my fingers up and down the keyboard in scales or chromatically, and the touch was absolutely consistent. No exceptions, no excuses, no “quirks”. Even Hanon was a pleasure to play, like my fingers were driving a sports car through windy mountain roads. Last of all, I found the ability to play pianissimo is unrivaled. Kawai just nailed it with the action. A+.
So there it was: the first high-end piano to scream “take me home with you! I don’t care how, rob a bank or something, but take me home!” As I prepared to leave the store, wondering how I could own one someday, I ended up talking with a lady of about forty, who was there buying a piano for her kids. She complimented me on my playing. “You play wonderfully. I could listen to you play all day.” I thanked her, made some self-deprecating comment, and admitted I really had little business playing the Shigeru, as I should have been doing the responsible thing by looking at the mid-range stuff.
She immediately dismissed my concerns. “Oh no,” she said, waving her hand, “you need that piano, and that piano needs you. It’d be a marriage made in heaven.” Somehow, that outside voice of validation really stuck with me. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was a plant for the store.
V. THE PIANONow that I was seriously considering a Shigeru, I tried to keep as open a mind as possible, and sample every other high-end brand I could lay my fingers on. I played Steinway, Bosendorfer, Fazioli, Bechstein, Sauter, Steingraber, Estonia, Seiler and Blunther, as well as the Yamaha S-series. Rather than offering an exhaustive write-up of the competition, I’ll simply say there’s lots of good stuff out there! Pulling back from all the PW snipping and nit-picking about what the absolute best brand is, I think we’re living in a new Golden Age of high-end pianos, where the choices are far more diverse than 20 or 30 years ago, and the quality control is higher than ever. Combine that with the buyer’s market of the recession, and 2010 is arguably the best year in history to be shopping for a high-end grand. Yes, including the “vintage” era.
So I shopped around for nearly a year, but in the end, I never found anything that dethroned Shigeru Kawai. (Some did come close.) Also, although Shigerus are usually less expensive than the competition, ironically I couldn’t employ my usual trick of buying slightly used products in good condition to save money. The Shigeru line is just too new and too rare to easily find used. I think it says a lot about how much I liked this piano that I decided to compromise on my usual financial ideology, bite the bullet, and buy a new one.
After a year of saving up, including some overtime, and aggressively pursuing higher-paying gigs in my line of work, I was ready. I bought a SK6 from Carnes Piano in San Jose. Thanks to Ming Li and Scott McBain for offering a good deal.
And so it came to pass: on a nondescript, cold, grey October afternoon, the movers wheeled a gleaming ebony Shigeru Kawai SK6 through my door. Fifteen minutes later, it was up and ready. I’m very happy and grateful to own such an instrument. I can’t help but think back to college, trudging a mile through the rain to the practice rooms to jockey for time on one of the beat-up old grands. Now I have a brand-new, concert-grade grand to play whenever I want, and all I have to do is walk down a flight of stairs. Why, I think I’l play right now!
Here are the pics, as promised. Sorry for the grainy, blurry iPhone photos, as I don’t have a better camera. And to answer the usual concerns:
- I tipped the movers
- There is a heating grate that I’m devising a deflector for
- It's not exposed to direct sunlight
- I’m thinking of a Damp Chaser
- As you can probably see, the room is too live and will be toned down, probably with a mix of area rugs and bass traps.
Pictures! Getch'ya pictures, right here! 
Gently, gently! 
"These legs weight about 50 pounds apiece." 
At last...mine, all mine! (The forum really needs an evil-grin emoticon, to go here.)
Full frontal nudity. 
I rented a crane for this shot.And finally...Thanks to everyone on PW for being a good source of information (and often, entertainment). For everyone wishing for their dream piano, hope it comes to pass.
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