I bought a Quik-Lok WS550 stand for my CP-300, but find that even in the lowest position, the keyboard is too high.... 29.25 inches from the floor to the key tops. Floor to top of the isolation blocks on the WS550 measures ~23.5 inches.

Any suggestions on a good solid stand in place of the QL that will allow me to drop the keyboard 3 or 4 inches?

The CP300 is rather tall for a keyboard. I don't know the height of your current stand so I don't know what will work best for you... however a no-arms height-adjustable drafting chair from your local office supply store might help. This would allow different height settings for you and your children.

Floor to key tops on both my acoustic grand and my MP8 (on a QL stand) is 28¾", a mere half inch lower than your setup. Perhaps you are used to a rather low-riding keyboard?

Jim,

The distance from floor to top of the isolation blocks on the stand measure ~23.5 inches. It's workable for me, but I think the kids will have quite an angle up from elbow to wrist (around 25* or so) by my calibrated eyeball. If the chair is too high, they may have trouble reaching the sustain pedal... although admittedly a bit early to worry about that.

Claude,

I'm surprised that yours is that high. I tried to play Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor last night and had a difficult time with my hand positions on the elevated keyboard. Or at least, I'd like to blame it on that.

On another note, the sustain pedal walks on my carpeted floor. How do you guys fix that? Put velcro on the bottom? (a good case for the fixed pedals of the console models)

Does Yamaha make a 3-pedal block as an option? I'd hate to have 3 individual pedals scooting around on the floor if they all move around like this one.

Well Speedy,

I like to think that my K.Kawai grand's dimensions are standard. I don't even use cups under the casters, and the figure I gave you was verified before I posted it. That's how I chose the height for the MP8 also. However I do use a Yamaha concert chair whose seat is height-adjustable.

Have you ever seen the pathetic and worn out, chopped chair that Glenn Gould used to sit on to play? The legs were so short that the keyboard stood pracically as high as his shoulders. Of course this placed his elbows way below the keytops. Some specialists argue that this is what gave him his incomparable articulation when playing Bach, as his fingers needed to be extraordinarily strong to play from below like that. With such low elbows, it's just impossible to bang chords from the wrists or from the elbows, and all power must necessarily come from the fingers themselves. Interesting hypothesis...

I solved the problem of the pedals walking away by setting up my DP against a wall. Indeed it would be ingenious to use velcro if you can work that out...

Regards,

Claude

Just as another data point, the distance from the floor to the top of the white keys on my Charles Walter Studio Upright is 29". I agree with Claude that this is pretty usual for acoustic pianos.

For pedals, you might check out the GPP-3, a programmable piano-style 3-pedal assembly from CME (www.cme-pro.com). It might be easier to secure a single large box like this to a carpeted floor than dealing with 3 individual pedals. I haven't tried the CME pedals, but I have heard a few good things about them.

Guys,

Thanks for the measurements to the keys. I stand corrected... just assumed I had a problem. Had no acoustic close by to measure and compare.

There goes that excuse for my poor playing!

packa, nice tip on the GPP-3 .

Claude, I figure a strip of Velcro with an adhesive tape backing attached to the bottom of the pedal oughta work.

Everyone,

to conclude this interesting reflection as to how high the pianist should sit versus his keyboard, I gather that the more he wants to hit the keys instead of pushing them down, the higher he'll want to sit. As a rule of thumb, perhaps we could say that it's best to sit low for baroque music (very articulate movement) and high for romantic (more percussive playing), the median being elbows and wrists on the same horizontal plane...

Best,

Claude

Let me add one more postscript here. At my Walter, I use the standard bench that came with the piano (it's not an adjustable artist bench, just an old-fashioned fixed bench). The seat of this bench is about 20 1/2" inches high (perhaps a half-inch or so higher when I play since I've got a thin cushion on it). This height is more than most chair and sofa seats around my house. I think it is normal that piano benches are a bit higher than regular seating (unless you're Glenn Gould).

Interesting, Paul.

My bench measures 18.5 inches to the top, plus the cusion adds about 1/2 or so on top of that. Sounds like you have about 2" of height over my setup.