So I had the chance to come across this Yamaha C3X-TA at the NAMM show.. anyone know if a dealer snatched it up and selling? heres a video I took of it.. it had a silent system, which I loved.. got to play the piano in a "quieter" area of the show as it was in a room with doors.

A couple of years ago I spent an hour or two playing a very small Yamaha silent baby grand at Pianos Hamm on the Left Bank of the Seine. The very charming saleswoman spent a lot of time looking for the headphones and pre-amp, so I had to play it in its silent mode for a while -- but when we started chatting, I unplugged the headphones so I could demonstrate it. She asked me to play it out loud for the rest of the time I was there.

I was quite impressed with such a short instrument's sound as an acoustic piano, and I thought the silent system worked great. It was a blast having my own Piano Shop on the Left Bank experience. Pianos Hamm was nothing like the charming shop described in the book (and my technician doubts that shop actually exists -- does anyone know?), but it was a great place to pass a couple of hours in Paris. Verticals were moving in and out every few minutes, demonstrating that the piano rental business at least was doing well.

Pianos Hamm has a much larger shop in the 15th arrondissement which I also visited. I played a Shigeru Kawai there but didn't realize I was interfering with a paying studio-renter's practice session, so that left more embarrassing than happy memories. In my defense, the clerk led me to piano and never asked me to stop, and I played quietly -- but the manager was upset when he came in later.

Andy

Piano Shop on the Left Bank is a very good read, I'm just finishing it right now...

I love the book and have read it several times. My tuner's skeptic radar went up though when he read the scene where the mover carries a baby grand up two flights of stairs unassisted -- his exact words are "I knew it was fiction when I read that."

I really want it to be 100% true though!

I've added a link to Google Maps to my previous post. When I click the link in Firefox it shows a Streetview shot of the shop. When I click it in Chrome, I just get the map.