Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Damning with faint praise--DP action is only "good enough"??

With all respect, I guess I have never quite understood this criticism. Granted, I have recently moved from a Yamaha GA-1 baby acoustic grand to a new generation DP (Casio PX-850). As a consequence, I am only familiar with the most current DP actions, which I demoed from Yamaha, Kawai, Roland and Casio...when I was selecting a Condo-acceptable DP piano, to replace my beloved GA-1.

However, I still am a bit perplexed by the types of dismissive comments of DP actions, as highlighted in my post title.

In my humble opinion, the keyboard actions on the latest generation of DP pianos are pretty friggin' remarkable. I argue that if one has adequate training and experience playing classical piano, on either traditional upright or grand style acoustic pianos...one should not have a particular issue or trouble in adjusting to these new DP pianos with quality actions (especially 3-contact sensor based actions).

The best DP action I played, was a high end Kawai. However, with that said, it was a relatively minor and arguably subtle (and subjective) improvement over the high end Yamaha's and Roland's, and in particular, the new Casio DPs...despite the rather significant difference in price. Again, my humble opinion.

In fact, I would be so bold as to state that I personally find it a more satisfying experience (in terms of responsiveness and expressivity) in playing on a DP with advanced action, versus a traditional acoustic upright with single escapement.

Admittedly, this may have much to due with my preference for more technically challenging classical compositions and repertoire, versus (for example) transcriptions of modern "popular" music. Nevertheless, it is an observation I wanted to make, and offer for reasonable (and hopefully cordial) discussion and debate.

P.S. -- I am not challenging the relative superiority of an acoustic GP action as compared to that of a quality DP. What I am trying to convey, is perhaps best accomplished with an analogy: If you took away the preferred racket from an advanced tennis player, and replaced it with a completely different and unfamiliar (and perhaps lower quality) racket...he/she should still be able to adjust, and make a good accounting of themselves in a match against their close peers. Or, alternatively, absolutely wipe the court against any less experienced competition -- despite the complete change of instruments (rackets).

Despite appearances, you are with friends here. Take your argument to the piano teachers or pianist corner forums. Wear a flak jacket

LOL. I hear ya'.

Somewhere on this planet there are young individuals on out of tune pos spinets kicking my butt skill-wise. So I can't complain when I sit down at my wondrous electronic gadget, as I have no excuses ...

Also I suspect having a variety of acceptable actions to practice on is better than only having one superb action with which to practice?

Hi Xorbe, you raise an interesting point.

However, in general, I would submit that it may be preferable for a beginning pianist to learn and practice on a DP with a good action, than on an acoustic hunk of junk -- e.g. a dilapidated, non-maintained spinet or upright. In the latter case, it may actually hold back the development of a student's technique and progress, or worse.

I think I might have posted this before but (at least some of) those young individuals are in the Moscow conservatoire:
Moscow conservatoire pianos

Here is a recent discussion on the teacher's fourm

I have no intention to start a debate, just that the teachers' perspective is quite different.

Hi vectistim:

That is certainly an interesting and inspiring story, assuming it is 100% accurate and not in any way romanticized. However, assuming it is a completely accurate portrayal of the abysmal conditions at the Moscow Conservatory...it is far from representative of your typical "western" piano student. I wouldn't be surprised if many of these students felt as though they were basically forced into a piano "boot camp". They basically had little choice, except to sink or swim. It was either that, or return in shame to their most likely impoverished parents.

In other words, they had to make the most of a miserable situation. With this type of over-riding motivation, it is not surprising that the finest creme would rise to the top, regardless of the obstacles.

Take anyone else, without such similar pressures and motivations to succeed, and put them in front of a piece of crap piano, and see if you get another Ashkenazy.

Wow, a lot of strong opinions in that thread! What a sad thing that a piano teacher wouldn't accept a student based on their circumstance. I have come across piano elitism many times where the claim is that an artist cannot develop beyond a certain level unless they have the best instrument at their disposal. I think that is bunk.

Anyways, I will practice on what I can afford and have space for and I find nothing disparaging in that. In fact I quite enjoy it.

Tritium, I have read your post, here:

Subject: Damning with faint praise--DP action is only "good enough"??

With all respect, I guess I have never quite understood this criticism. Granted, I have recently moved from a Yamaha GA-1 baby acoustic grand to a new generation DP (Casio PX-850). As a consequence, I am only familiar with the most current DP actions, which I demoed from Yamaha, Kawai, Roland and Casio...when I was selecting a Condo-acceptable DP piano, to replace my beloved GA-1.

However, I still am a bit perplexed (as a classically trained pianist), by the types of dismissive comments of DP actions, as highlighted in my post title.

In my humble opinion, the keyboard actions on the current generation DP pianos are pretty friggin' remarkable. I argue that if one has adequate training and experience playing classical piano, on both traditional upright as well as grand style acoustic pianos...one should not have a particular issue or trouble in adjusting to these new DP pianos with quality actions (especially 3-contact sensor based actions).

The best DP action I played, was a high end Kawai. However, with that said, it was a relatively minor and arguably subtle (and subjective) improvement over the high end Yamaha's and Roland's, and in particular, the new Casio DPs...despite the rather significant difference in price. Again, my humble opinion.

In fact, I would be so bold as to state that I find it more a more pleasing experience (in terms of muscle memory and tactile "feeling" and response to notes struck and sounded) between a modern, advanced DP action -- in comparison to the difference between a traditional acoustic "upright" action versus a Grand Piano action.

Admittedly, this may have much to due with my preference for more technically challenging classical compositions and repertoire, versus (for example), transcriptions of modern "pop" music". Nevertheless, it is an observation I wanted to make, and offer for reasonable (and hopefully cordial) discussion and debate.

P.S. -- I am not challenging the relative superiority of an acoustic GP action as compared to that of a quality DP. What I am trying to convey, is perhaps best accomplished with an analogy: If you took away the preferred racket from an advanced tennis player, and replaced it with a completely different and unfamiliar (and perhaps lower quality) racket...he/she should still be able to adjust, and make a good accounting of themselves in a match against their close peers. Or, alternatively, absolutely wipe the court against any less experienced competition -- despite the complete change of instruments (rackets).

_____________________________________________________________________________________

as I understand your post, Tritium, you are commenting that digital pianos - using your phrasing "generation DP pianos" are words to the effect remarkable.

as a beginner piano player, I couldn't agree more that generation DP pianos are awesome in so many ways. I am not fussed at all about the action of any digital piano with weighted keys. In life it has been proven again and again that humans can adapt easily to differences and changes. Before most of the posters in Piano World were born, people like me were typing on all sorts of manual typewriters and they varied vastly from an Underwood to a Royal typewriter. My Clavinova CPL-50 I though was 20 years old but I check with google and it is more like 30 years old and its still works beautifully. The action is beautiful as well as the sound that it produces from the very large 18" speakers and I believe it cost $3,000 when I bought it in about 1985. My Yam P95 has tiny speakers of 4 to 6 inches and only weighs 26 pounds and only costs $600, so dirt cheap. I live in a shack with holes in the walls and a roof that leaks when it rains heavy near the back door - not near the piano in the front room. When I was 27, I bought the shack, 450 square feet for a mere 45,000 so payments of $450 a month - so as low as a cheap monthly rental. Today people in my city are paying half a million dollars for a tiny condo 450 square feet. So digitals are as good as sliced bread because piano players can play them anytime and move them around easily and are very affordable considering all the things that people have to spend their hard earned money on.

I am humbly grateful to have a secondhand acoustic Yam 3 legged piano, but if I did not live in this shack, I would being leaving in a condo or an apartment if I could afford it and so I would be grateful to have any digital of any price or quality just to be able to play it 24/7/365.

cheers,

3S11TLM

Michael, I have to ask, but are you a real person?

James
x

Eric Idle: We used to live in this tiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

Graham Chapman: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing and we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

Terry Jones: You were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in a corridor!

Michael Palin: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! Shack!? Hmph.

Eric: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin...but it was a house to us.

Graham: We were evicted from our hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

Terry: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in a shoebox in the middle of the road.

Michael: Cardboard box?

Terry: Aye.

Michael: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a rolled up newspaper in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the newspaper, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down the mill for fourteen hours a day, week in week out, for sixpence a week. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

Graham: Luxury! We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, work twenty hour a day at the mill for two-pence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

Terry: Well of course, we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had to eat a hand of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

Eric: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our Mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

Michael: And you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

Some opinions there I found pretty hard to swallow. I wonder if for some of them a DP equals "keyboard".

I think that is indeed what's going on there. Many of them probably tested one out in the 80's, hated it, and refuse to accept that they may have improved since then.

my father gave me one such cheap casio keyboard back in the 80's and I began taking piano lessons. in order to give the device some weighted key action back at home, I used to put foam under the keys :p

thankfully, I got an upright not long after. my old DGX620 from some years ago had comparable light action to that -- though my teacher's piano had far more weighted keys. yesterday I finally got a go with the Casio PX-850 and was blown away both by sound and action. I'm getting it, if only to go full circle with a vengeance

You could "remove" the weighting on the PX-850 and replace it with foam. You know, for old times' sake.

Playing on a digital beats not playing at all because you can't afford moving to an individual house and you respect your neighbors enough to think they don't have to suffer because you want to learn the piano.
It's funny a lot of people argument is "you can find a good second hand acoustic and it will be better than a digital but they never take into consideration that the price of the instrument is only a part of the problem.
If I lived in an individual house I would probably have bought a decent acoustic, I live in a flat and I have neighbors that I respect, so I bought a CA65 that I play with a headphone and that I really enjoy...
A lot of very arrogant people in the teacher thread, who seems to forget that you are entitled to want to learn music even if you are not wealthy

I wonder if they would do the same teaching other instruments, eg: I won't teach you on that $5 plastic recorder, I won't teach you on that $50 starter violin, etc.

perfect