Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Playing with headphones.

First of all, I have to say that I don’t like to use headphones, either for listening to music or playing my digital piano. But since I don’t pretend to bother anyone at night, I have to use them every day.

But for some reason, I get better playing with headphones. Maybe I focus more on the music than playing without them. It’s really curious. When I take the headphones, the same thought comes to my mind: I hate you. But after a while playing, I realize that I get a better concentration, and finally I reach more optimum results with my practice.

Perhaps it's because you know that nobody's listening, and that makes you more calm
Practising is almost impossible for me when I know someone can hear it ... hopefully, I will get rid of this feeling when I get an acoustic

I wouldn't say I hate my headphones, they are good quality but playing through them is not as much fun as listening on decent amp+speakers.

I end up playing & practicing better though because I do find that with the headphones, it is very easy to spot tiny details like a legato not being quite even, dynamics being a tad different for some notes, etc. In that respect, I find that headphones sharpen listening focus - as long as you intently listen of course!

John

I must admit Recaredo, I have never tried, I just love the amps buzzing , and being loud!
But there are a couple of benefits I can see, no one will hear any mistakes you may make.
And you wont hear anyone else, like a knock on the door, or a telephone, or someone calling you, so there is nothing that should distract you when playing!!

If I did go onto headphones, the next door neighbour would think he had won, he hasn't.
I endured six months of his jackhammer noise when he took all the render off his house. Twice! His answer to waking me up at eight every morning, and making it so bad I could not hear the radio in my own house was: "I have some spare earplugs if you want" He was serious.

Its a very bad Idea to sleep with earplugs, if there should be a fire , you will not hear the fire alarm.

So, I play very loud whenever I feel like it, on principle.

Marshall McLuhan had this great phrase "electronic wallpaper." I think that kind of captures the security headphones give us when we play.

I like to play those Hanon exercises with headphones because I know how dull it can sound to others, but my main problem is poor quality of piano sound due to the poor quality of headphones that came with my SP-170.

I was thinking about getting Sennheiser HD25-1 as I have previous experience in DJing, does anyone know how those headphones work with digital pianos?

Artur,Yes I can tell you!
I read your post, and took my headphones off that I use at the PC , just to see what brand they were, as I did not know, my DJ son gave them to me a while back.

So, Imagine my surprise when I found they are Sennheiser HD 435. I had never used them for anything else except the PC, when Mrs Rossy is listening to the TV and I am on youtube!

So, I just unplugged them and went upstairs to my DP and checked them out for you,
First off, I wacked up the volume on the DP, which is a full range 88 key hammer action DP, and played some heavy bass notes and chords, right at the bottem of the range, then I did the same at the top end, then I played a whole range of things.

Nothing distorted, so I set my DP on "duel voice" and chose Grand Piano for voice one and Strings for voice two, and did the same again.

Again, perfect. I can report that they are indeed excellent headphones.

They are comfy too, they have about two yards of cable on them, and set in the cable is a volume control.

Also they have an adapter that comes supplied, you can plug them straight in your pc or laptop, or screw the adaptor on, and they will now fit the phono out on your keyboard..

Highly recomended. ( I wont use them for my keyboard though as I dont need to.!!)

Thanks Rostosky,

I will check out that model of Sennheiser.

+1 I'd get embarrassed if other people could hear me. Love my digital!

Ditto! Except for when I play for my teacher or to entertain my children, I play exclusively with headphones. My practice time is when the baby is napping or all the kids are still in bed, and even when they're awake I get embarrassed practicing in front of everyone. Headphones are a savior for me - I get to enjoy the music with none of the blushing and worrying

Headphones are a bless when you do the Hanon exercises which might sound really disturbing to others in the vicinity

Completely illogical, but if my wife is around whilst I play through headphones, I still find myself playing softly and meekly.

Like others, I play with headphones when I feel self-conscious.

I was using them when my other half was sleeping, but gave that up when he kept hearing woodpeckers.