Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Did you expect this?

Had you even been born then? And by the way, I think Keith Emmerson would argue the point with you, considering he got epicondylitis rather badly that became dystonia from playing mostly electronic keyboards. And the list goes on and on and...

It's not a matter of getting a great keyboard or a mediocre piano, as mentioned before, they are different instruments and I think a lot of non-players fail to differentiate. "Oh, isn't that an electric piano?" Perhaps, but in name only.

I have seen a video on YouTube where Emerson plays acoustic piano with Oscar Peterson. Not sure who thought that was a good idea. Emerson hammers the keys... Compared to Peterson's nuanced touch Emerson looks and sounds like a novice. I have wondered if this is due to him playing so many synthesizers. This video really does illustrate the differences between a good pianist and a good keyboardist.

My answer: we don't really know IF we consider someone who more or less has to start on a keyboard (a number of factors play into this) but is moved over to a fine instrument fairly early.

My reasoning: in doing some research recently I found out that the famous tennis player, Poncho Gonzales, started with a 51 cent racket. He did not even get proper equipment until he started winning important matches.

The best way to go? Hardly. But he was without doubt one of the most incredible players who ever lived, winning major matches against the much younger players even when he was close to and past 40.

It's a lot the same in music. If you give an incredibly talented and motivated young player SOMETHING to play on, then that young player starts to do amazing stuff, most likely (or possibly) someone or more than "someone" will come along to help with "better equipment".

But if you put today's best rackets, with the power and "magic strings", into the hands of the average person, it just doesn't make much difference.

In the musical world, bringing in the tennis analogy and back to Gonzales, that might mean starting on a crap, no action 61 key keyboard - which by the way I also hate - but moving to something better within or shortly after 6 months, then little by little getting better instruments.

Today a lot of kids who have no aunt or friend with a piano to give to them, and whose budget does not currently allow going out and taking a chance on buying an instrument for a kid who has not yet started and who may have no talent or desire, get a keyboard from a friend, or buy something that is a couple hundred dollars.

Then I get some of these kids. Now, as you all can guess, MOST of these kids do not show any huge promise, or desire, or talent, or will power. Would they do better if they had an expensive grand at home? Maybe. But some of them simply are spoiled, lazy or innately so unmusical that the best instrument in the universe would not help them.

On the other hand, now and then we get a kid who just won't give up. That kid will do the best s/he can on an instrument that would stop most people, then people get excited and pitch in. Starting on a crap keyboard - one of those blow the keys down with a weak breath and not enough keys and a tinny sound - does not mean staying on it.

I think most of you work with kids who are way more entitled than most of the ones I start.

I started on a Hardman Peck, quite literally from nearly the century before. It only had 85 keys. It had sticky keys, and it was out of tune, although my parents did get a tech to try to make it work as well as possible

If I had to play on it today, I would quit. I'd rather play on any good 88 key weighted keyboard, a decent one, than that Hardman Peck.

It's all relative.

But yes, playing on any keyboard today just makes me dream of getting back to a grand. Even an upright frustrates me to the point that I don't want to play.

Once you play on a grand, and you master that playing, you just can't go back - not to perform and not to get the full range of sound and touch and everything else.

But the crap instrument was all I had when I started. It was sent down from NY by my aunt. My parents at that time had no money for such an instrument.

Later my parents got a Knight upright, so I only played on a grand in lessons, until I got into FSU. And having only the upright really hurt me, because the Steinway A felt heavy, sluggish, slow, and it caused tension. The instrument was excellent, but I could not master it only playing it in a lesson.

Once I got to FSU I had access to grands, and for the first time I had a chance to compete with other students who grew up with grands in their homes.

Anyone playing on an upright and then trying to enter the world of serious students playing on grands is playing catch-up, in a really huge and serious way.

But the other side of this is that I almost get the feeling that most teachers here would have given up on me because I did not have a grand at home.

I am torn between agreeing that a good grand is by far the best way to go, always, when navigating through the serious classical music world - and also wanting to stand up for all the people who come from a background where the best possible instrument is not an option.

I don't want to see the idea promoted that for anyone who for ANY reason can't get a first-class instrument, the world of music is forbidden, off limits, impossible, etc.

About teaching on uprights:

When Chopin taught on his upright - remember HE played on the upright while his students played on the grand - you can bet that he sounded a whole universe better on the upright. I also think it is highly unlikely that he considered the upright a truly inferior instrument.

Expressiveness is achievable on a modern digital instrument and thus it should be possible to study it on the digital.

I am almost apt to say, that if a teacher is not able to well teach a student the piano playing on a modern digital piano, then this teacher would for sure also not be able to properly teach any student on a first class acoustic grand piano.

To add to the flame...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/t...-could-love.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The price, as with all electronics/computers, will likely to drop drastically and quickly.

And this will appeal to the younger generations. My middle school child, who is a serious music student and practices on a grand piano, read this article and said: "when I get out of college and get a job, I want to buy this one".

If the tone constructs from timing and dynamics alone, as some of you already agreed on, then mechanical playing technique is only of interest for supporting our attempts to consistently generate a well reproducable momentum,..........

If expression is 'only' about timing and dynamics, shouldn´t a modern digital instrument then not be the same feasable for stuying piano playing as an acoustic instrument, and a good teacher should be able to guide us well regardless of the used instrument?

On an acoustic you only have to go down a fraction and the hammers are sent into motion. With a digital, you almost have to keybed to get a sound. If you are trying to play pianissimo, or if you are trying to play fast, this has a negative impact. There are times when you want to "stroke" the key, like brushing dust off it, and if I did that with my DP the only sound you would hear is silence.

On an acoustic you only have to go down a fraction and the hammers are sent into motion. With a digital, you almost have to keybed to get a sound. If you are trying to play pianissimo, or if you are trying to play fast, this has a negative impact. There are times when you want to "stroke" the key, like brushing dust off it, and if I did that with my DP the only sound you would hear is silence.

To compensate, the digital fans will be like a plague of locusts attempting to convert the "unwashed" (acoustic owners) that their technology is superior. It will happen, and you can't say I didn't warn you.