Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Piano touch/technique- Steinway Vs Kawai

Being a piano major in a big place full of grand pianos, I get to practice on a lot of different instruments.

I would like to hear people's experiences, to see if my experiences are similar with these pianos. Here is what I noticed, in regards to touch:

Steinway B's - I've practiced a good deal on 3 or so different Steinway B's - I think they are all from the late 90's, maybe only 8-9 years old.

The keys are very light for the most part. Here's the important thing I noticed: Let's say you are playing Bach, it is harder to control each individual note. It seems almost like each note is much more sensitive, you can more easily get a harsh or ugly sound, but you can also get a very nice legato sound if you work harder.

Kawai's - mostly the models around 6 feet, I know they are a bit smaller than the Steinway, but it is what I have for comparison:

The keys are much, much heavier than the Steinways. They seem to be easier to play in terms of balance and control, but the drawback is that you probably don't have as many graduations of touch and tone color as you'd have on the Steinway.

The Steinways definitely seem to make one work much harder, even though they have lighter keys - that's what makes it harder to control in terms of sound balance.

Now, here's the crux of my question - are all Steinways like this, or this being a music school, or these Steinways just regulated poorly? They are fairly new (8-9 years or so) but they are played a lot.

I have a brand new Steinway M and my teacher has a Kawai. I too have found the Kawai to have heaver key action than my Steinway. That said, however, I have found my steinway to be very easy to control and get the sound I want out of it. Much easier than the Kawai which I sometimes struggle to get certain tonal colors out of.

Between the industrial use the pianos over there get, wild daily/weekly swings in RH%, it's difficult to get a good sense of how a Steinway, Kawai, or any piano could perform at its best.

Yeah, that is true - the conditions at a music school are far from optimal. The pianos do have humidifiers, but I am not sure how well taken care of they are.

Some of these Steinways have the potential to be really good - it is unfortunate that either lack of proper maintenance or too much use makes them worse!

So much development work is still to be done in order to get an action that is not constantly out of order. When reading various posts I have got the impression that 50 % of the pianos need regulation of some kind.

Some schools have terribel pianos. I once visited a music school in Germany in summer time and never met so many pianios out of tune or with odd touch feel as there.

I do play very little Bach, but can imagine that a heavy action should be suitable for his music. IMO, however, a light action makes it easier to control pianissimo in fast passages. But whatever the action, nobody can influence on tone quality (colour), only volume and sounding time, so I cannot understand that part of Jeff123's observations on the Kawai.

I made this post here on the pianist's forum instead of the piano forum for one reason:

This really affects one's piano technique. At least at school, where I always have to practice on 5-10 different pianos depending on what is available, I have to constantly adapt.

For example, on the Steinway I have to be much more careful with the unregulated and lighter action, while the Kawai is heavier, so I have to adapt.

Also, each room that these pianos are in differ greatly. Some are large, some are small - some with good acoustics, other with very flat acoustics.

The Steinway offers more tonal quality because it has a much broader dynamic range that can be accessed with ease with a lighter key action.. Therefore, it is much easier to give the piano a harp-like echoing quality while it also easier to give the piano a singing bell like quality in the upper registers of the piano.

This is just my observation.

Yes, but if you played some conservatory Steinways, you would quickly run to the Kawais! Constant playing really takes a toll on them, as I have been able to tell thus far. The action makes it almost unplayable in certain regards, if not maintained well. (And this is hard in a large school with a lot of students, keep in mind.)

Just wondering CrashTest -- in your school, do most students prefer to practice on the Steiways for whatever reason? Do the Steinways get more use than the Kawais, hence seem to "deteriorate" faster than the Kawais after a fresh round of regulation/voicing/tuning?

Well, the Steinways are often in the teaching studios - so that means that there are more lessons given on them.

I would say that in terms of practicing, the Kawais are used much more - the studio rooms with the Steinways are not always available.

Most students avoid the Steinways - due to the poor action regulations and feel. I know that although I prefer the sound of the Steinway, sometimes the action just makes it unbearable and I have to go play a Kawai or Yamaha.

That's too bad. Well, in that case then maybe the Kawai or the Yamaha would seem more usuable.

Comparing a brand new, freshly tuned Steinway to a brand new, freshly tuned Kawai I would choose the Steinway in most cases.

Yes, so would I!

As I did, also. Last year when I was shopping I drove straight from the Kawai dealer to the Steinway, and was amazed at how much lighter and responsive the action on the Steinway was. It had been finely prepped by an outstanding local technician, something too often neglected in Steinway showrooms. Till then I had thought seriously of getting an RX 3 or 5, but after playing them both within an hour I decided Steinway was the only way to go. I may add that I have my A regulated annually, and would say that if you cannot afford the maintenance I would recommend a Kawai with the Millenium III action that seems to require much less attention. A Steinway properly regulated (and voiced) is, IMHO, clearly superior.

The Steinway at my school is terrible. It has really heavy keys/action, and it sounds messy. Some one donated it, and I can see why they did that. However, I once played a Steinway in a practice room before a competition at Cal state Dominguez Hills, and it was really great. So responsive and light keys! A lot of Yamahas are nice like that, too, except they don't always have as much control. Kawais are a whole other breed in and of themselves. I would never solely practice on a Kawai for the sake that on a Kawai, the piano makes the tone for you, basically. They are on the heavy side, so they are a little difficult if you're trying to play loud and fast. However, once you get into the Kawai 'swing' of things, you might find you really like them. Of course, I'm talking about new Kawais here. I've never played on an old Kawai.

I haven't really done too much practicing on a steinway yet. At recitals I've played on a steinway concert grand, so that was definitally different then my Kawai baby grand at home. so I don't know if I could give a fair comparison. as far as touch between my baby grand and a yamaha baby grand, they seem about the same but Yamaha has a bit lighter keys. I've noticed Steinway's though feel a bit fuller. (the one's I've played) I would prefer a steinway over kawai..

The university where I practice also has the trio of Steinway/Kawai/Yamaha. There are a few Yamahas that are basically new that they get on loan every year. These are consistantly good in action and always nicely in tune.

There is a huge variey in Steinways ranging from mediocre to very best.

There's a couple Kawai that are quite reliable but I would echo what others have said about heavy action.

I agree that Steinway wins when it is in decent shape. Even some of the less good Steinways are better because I find the sound to have much more depth and especially in the bass it just sounds more organic. The new Yamahas were always inferior to me because they didn't have that pure organic bass sound.

As far as inconsistent action and heavy action, I really do think this makes it technically difficult to play some things. I'm currently polishing Chopin Prelude# 3 and it is much harder to get an even and soft left hand on a Kawai(heavy) or a poorly maintained action. In this case the Yamaha works great.

Well, as a summary of many discussions in many threads it is the action that really matters if you want to express technically demanding music as you like. A. Galembo came also to this conclusion in his investigations (The perception of musical instruments by performer and listener, with special application to the piano).

All pianos sound like pianos, and the audiens may distinguish between the sound quality and the the pianist's performance. But nobody knows the difficulties the poor pianist has to fight with when the actions are out of regulation or badly designed, or poorly constructed, as too many pianos seems to be.

It is very hard to accept that actions are not more uniform and made to pianists' wishes (I suppose a light action is preferred by the majority of experienced pianists)

Many Yamahas have made an impression on me because of nice action. But is not the Millenium action of Kawai now superior to all others? And will stand wear and weather conditions better?

- - - - -

Happy with my Bechstein A grand with Schwander action and my PS 80 dgital. Do not know yet what to say about my new upright - little confused.

The Yamaha and Kawai actions are generally good, nothing to complain about - but nothing too special either.

New York Steinways are typically not very good pianos when a little bit out of shape. Play a Hambourg Steinway. It's like night and day, completely different class of sound, action, and construction.

CrashTest,

I understand that Renner supplies the actions for the Hamburg Steinways. Do you (or anyone) know if this differs from the actions Renner makes for other brands. Specifically, is the Steinway "Accelerated Action," which is patented, also supplied in the German action, or is that only on the New York Steinways? Sounds like a silly question, I'm sure, but I have never been able to get a definitive answer, not even from the local Steinway dealer, from whom I purchased my A last year.

Thanks for thinking about this.