Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Can a 9 foot concert grand be used at home?

Somewhat off-topic - I bought a C6 a few months ago and one of the most popular questions I get is "what kind of piano is it? A baby grand? A full grand? A concert grand?" I'm never sure what to tell them - the people that ask generally are the ones that know nothing at all about pianos.

Entheo I'm not really that surprised. I would speculate that the top reasons for a piano are a) lessons for little Brayden and Brianna (who will likely abandon them by the time they're 12) and b) because a piano [shaped thing] would look so lovely in this room. Not many people play, and even fewer care enough to buy a good instrument and even fewer of those can actually afford it. And the ones that ARE really good probably have access to university pianos, or concert hall pianos, or any number of pianos that keep them from needing a good instrument at home.

If my history is accurate, the term "Baby Grand" was first used to describe a 5' grand introduced by Weber in 1900.

Personally, I don't use the term but if I did I would apply it to pianos 5' (or shorter). What you have is a grand piano that is ___ feet/inches or ___ cm long.

I don't know dudes. A piano with nine feet????

Or people who actually do play but live in 900 sq. ft. condominiums or 1400 sq. ft. houses with three bedrooms, two baths and Brayden and Brianna and who still would like a grand piano.

This cynical view of the performance of short pianos--which I fully shared 20 years ago--no longer holds. Several makers of very short pianos are working hard to improve them and that work is paying off in significantly improved musical performance.

ddf

does this mean that second hand baby grands at the moment are not viable option if you want a quality instrument? only buy new if you want a baby grand. but a new baby grand would cost about the same as a used non-baby grand.

Del I didn't mean to imply that short pianos necessarily sound bad. I nearly bought a 5'8 Knabe and played an SK-1 that just blew me away. What I meant was that a lot of pianos appear to be bought as status symbols more that as instruments. Kind of like pool tables. I always wanted a pool table and was thrilled to find that the house I'm in now was willing to leave it. I played it for about a month and now it sits collecting dust. When I move I'll leave it for the next guy. I've seen houses for sale around me that seem to have the same thing going on with their pianos. If they are played at all it is by the player system installed on it...

There certainly are people that love to play, but I don't think they're the majority of the market. I am not a piano retailer though so I may just be projecting my own ignorance.

But within the past five years or so several piano makers have upgraded their small grand piano lines. None of these have the low bass performance of longer pianos but neither are they tubby, unmusical atrocities of the bad old days.

Check out the new Young Chang 4'11" that Del designed (and is too modest to mention out front). Not only does the bass have clarity, but the transition to the treble bridge is clean.

--Cy--

Has he designed a 9 ft?