Can someone tell me the distance of the music stand above the keyboard on a baby grand, that is, from the keyboard to the bottom of the music where it sits on the stand.

Here's why. I practise at home on a Yamaha Clavinova digital piano, but every couple of months I get together with friends and we play on their various baby grands. I find it awkward adapting to the change in the higher position of the music stand. I have to tilt my head back farther and have a little less sense of where my fingers are on the keyboard. I'm thinking of making some kind of booster seat for the music on my Clavinova a few weeks before we meet in order to make it easier to adapt myself.

This can be an issue for those who play on digitals and also spinets, and the music tends to sit right above the keys. The actual height, however, varies from piano to piano. Perhaps an easy "fix" would be to buy a music stand like this one Manhasset stand and remove the stand from your digital and place this one behind it. You can adjust the height as needed.

Try Pipe Organs - I play 3 regularly plus 2 Allen Organs - all at different heights, and at different distances from the player.

A grand piano music stand is higher than an upright - which can cause neck pain. I haven't solved that issue.

Grand pianos will vary in distance between the music rack and the keyboard itself from 10" to 12". This is a generalization and I am sure there are exceptions to this. Acoustic uprights vary much more as there are different designs in furniture and style.

I hope that helps.

I remember finding it awkward at first when I moved from my old Acrosonic to my little Kawai grand. I had a sore neck for the first month or so. It becomes easier with time, but I still sometimes get neck pains from looking up at the music.

If you wear glasses, single-vision lenses of the right prescription help greatly in saving wear and tear on the neck. The optometrist will know if you say 'computer glasses.' Progressive lenses are not going to be right; you'll have to crane your neck back to get the reading part of the lens where the music is on a grand--- and of course, that is not a good seated posture for playing.

There's no solution, except to get used to the new height--- we can't really saw the piano off any lower. It also helps to break the bad habit of looking at the hands too much (a little glance once in a while is ok).

A higher seat may be ok for you, as long as the posture of the spine and legs are not in a position of strain, and as long as the forearm and hand are more or less level--- aligned straight with each other, anyway. It is less dangerous to have the elbows a few inches higher, than to have them too low so that the hand is bent backward and is pulling the keys down, rather than pressing them down. That kind of flexure of the wrist is very unkind to the tendons that operate the fingers.

I'm not so sure about booster seats. The seat needs to be very stable--- you cannot afford to be wobbling around on the piano bench, or to be in danger of falling. That could introduce stresses that will affect your playing and sense of balance. I do not think a booster seat will be your friend. A good, adjustable piano bench is a very good investment.

To answer your question, the seat is adjusted to 22 inches (my piano teacher found it more comfortable at 19" and some people like it as low as 16", but I have longer arms and legs than many people), the white keytops are 28¾" from the floor, and the tray of the music desk is 41¼ inches when the music rack is sitting on top of the closed piano lid--- maybe as much as 3 - 4" lower when the lid is open and the music desk is slid into its normal seat.

As Jeff says, the keytop to benchtop dimension is the critical one than you need to standardize wherever you play.

As for where you put your charts, there's a device called a copy holder that you can get from an office supply place. It consists of a heavy base and a spring balanced parallelogram arm like on a desk lamp, all supporting a clip board. It'll let you adjust the height up to maybe a foot above the top of the digital. Add a piece of cardboard to it to support wide sheet music, and you're good to go.

Another ergonomic trick: A lot of pianos, especially on stage dollies, have the pedals uncomfortably high. I have a scrap of 2x6 that I use under my heel to avoid straining.

Depending on you age, for home while practicing on the digital, the music stand is a great idea. For playing your friends' baby grands, a combination of some reading glasses and a piano bench cushion, should make it easier. Those things are affordable and easy to transport. When I moved from my console to a baby grand, then to my C3, I had to change to reading glasses that I could move up my nose and get a padded bench.

Good Luck!

I have a similar difficulty when going from my CW vertical, with its music rest about 5 inches above the keys, to my teacher's Yamaha grand which holds the music at least twice that height. I find myself sitting up straighter, reading the music more easily, etc. but there's always an adjustment. Unfortunately, my music lamp at home, which sits on the piano, doesn't allow much room to raise the music, even if I can figure out what to put it on. But I have been thinking I'd try experimenting with yoga blocks ... The light purple will look fantastic against my mahogany piano, I just know.