advice: electric v. acoustic, teacher v. parents

[pianohopper]

I have a rather awkward problem on my hands, beginning from a lesson today.  My summer piano teacher didn't know until today that I was playing on an electric piano at home.  (I had told her, but she is a very distracted person.)   This, she says, is the root of my bad habits -- those being that I "tickle" the tops of the keys, rather than pulling and putting strength into them.  The latter is the technique we have been working on for the past 3 months.

This, then, must be why my technique improves at piano lessons and then goes back to normal "tickling" when I go home and practice on the electric piano. 

My piano teacher is so passionate about what she does, and she likes me so much and is so generous, that she offered to lend me her upright to practice on until the end of my high school days -- i.e., 3 years.  I would love to take her up on this offer, because anything that will help me get better technique and playing is something I welcome with open arms.

The problem is with my parents, particularly my father.  The only way to put it is, he's a stubborn ass (and I say that in the most loving way).  It was his idea to buy the electric piano in the first place, mainly because he didn't want to have to dish out the dough to get an acoustic tuned.  So, I asked her to call and talk to them, because I know if they heard it from me, they would brush it away. 

I still am afraid they will not realize the seriousness of this, and will decline her offer. 
What can I do???  (I am going to lose sleep tonight.)

[steve jones]

Hmmm,

I put myself through uni selling those electric piano's! They were very popular, and convenient.

However, there is only some much you can get from a set of multisamples. It would probably be better in honesty to buy a high quality sample library, soft sampler and then spend the rest on a superduper controller keyboard.

But with regards to your question:

If you father doesnt have to pay, then he cant have much to object to can he? And if you improve exponentially with the new piano, then he should realise the importance. My advice is to it one step at a time - if you can convince him to let you borrow your teachers upright (if only for a few weeks say  ), then you on the right road.

And try not to let this keep you up (I know its hard). Worrying is always counter productive to solving problems. If you break the problem down into a series of small tasks, and give each your full (waking) concentration, then the problem will soon look less daunting.

[pianohopper]

steve,

thanks for your reply.  I should give specifics: our electric piano is a Clavinova-140(? Not sure about number, maybe 150?)...and I just had a brief discussion about it with my dad (tip of the iceberg) -- he refuses to believe that the touch on an upright can be better than his wonderful electric.  Even when I argued about the hammer/string/full sound type stuff, he wouldn't listen!  The argument for acoustic pianos, simply, is that you can play deeper into the key bed.......I think he likes being able to plug a guitar amp in and blast the hell out of it without having to put any weight behind the notes.  It's like the people who talk nonstop but never really say anything worth listening to.

[steve jones]

I see your dilema. Some people will just not be told, especially by their junior. Dont worry, my mother is the same 

Maybe it would be beneficial to take a different tact. At the moment you are confronting someone who clearly wont bow down (by challenging his belief that his piano is best). If it possible that you could come up with a different, less confrontations reason to borrow your teachers instrument? How about - your teach wants to get rid of the piano for space, but she is prepared to let you use it instead.

This way everyone wins. Your dad gets to 'be right', you get your new piano, and nobody ends up out of pocket.

[jeremyjchilds]

You need an acoustic instrument...

What if your piano teacher needs an electronic...maybe you could do a trade for 3 years...then use your electronic when you are in your dorm room, (for when you can't get into a practice room)

You owe it to yourself to get an acoustic right away.

[026497]

I had the same problem before. When I started to learn piano, I used a electric piano. After 3 months, my technique did not improve at all. My teacher asked me and I told her that I practised on a electric piano. She phoned to my mother and asked her to buy me a "real" piano. My mother believed in her but my stubborn father did not(now, we still do not make compromise). I suggest you to ask your teacher to call your parents up(phone to your mother first, womem are not deaf of reason). Maybe your problem will be ironed out. 

[xvimbi]

I think it's a myth that digitals don't allow to "play deep into the keys". They do so very well. In particular, the Yamaha actions are right in the middle in terms of heaviness, so they do emulate "real" actions very well. It is not at all so that a light touch will produce a loud sound no matter what. The only drawback I see in this respect is that landing in the keybed is a bit harsher on digitals than it is on acoustics, and even that can be fixed.

The big difference, IMO, is in the sound. There are of course a lot more nuances that one can generate with an acoustic, and the decay properties are different, and this is somewhat reflected in the feel of the action mechanism. For example, I find it difficult to generate a good pp on a digital; it will still sound when at the same time, an acoustic will be completely silent (because the hammers fall back without striking the strings). This however, is in principle adjustable. Again, I don't think the action is to blame, it's rather the sound-generating mechanism.

So, IMHO, in terms of technique development, one can get a lot out of a digital piano until one really has to switch over to an acoustic. I believe the point to switch is when one can imagine sounds that a digital is not capable of producing, but the acoustic is. At this point, going to an upright is again only a compromise. If one realizes the limitations of a good digital, one will likely start to complain soon about the difference in the feel between an upright and a grand.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for acoustic pianos, they are the "real thing" (grands, that is, not uprights). All I want to say is that there is no need to despair if circumastances don't allow getting one. A good digital, such as the Clavinova, will get anyone a long way, and they certainly don't destroy technique or form bad habits. It's the person who gets the bad habits. The digital can't be blamed for that.

[omnisis]

I practice on both and upright and a Yamaha digital at home b/c sometimes I like to play late at night and don't want to disturb my housemates.  I must say that I agree with xvimbi, the thing I miss most on the digital is the sound (those beautiful lush overtones) not the touch.  I do prefer the touch on my acoustic because the feedback is more visceral to me, but I practiced on the digital for almost a year before I bought the acoustic.  One thing to keep in mind, don't change your technique with the yamaha, play it just like you would a grand piano.  Also, try setting the touch setting to "hard" this will make it so that you have to play into the keys more.  The one annoying thing about digitals is that you are stuck with discrete dynamics, on an accoustic you can find any number of dynamic levels (assuming your technique is up to snuff and the piano is in good working order) on each and every key in the digital world you have to deal with interpolated velocity curves which (no matter how accurate) are still a discrete approximation of a very analog process.  If you are very advanced student it may be the case that the digital just isn't going to work for you but you can't beat it's convience as a practice  instrument.  Perhaps you can find a way to work on a real piano at a school or church once or twice a week after you have all your pieces in your hands well.  At any rate, don't let this de-rail your lessons.  Work on the technique and when you show up for a lesson ask your teacher if you can warm-up on her piano a bit to get used to the action (I'm assuming it's heavier than your own).  Also bear in mind that even accoustics have a wide range of action responses, my teacher's piano has a heavier action than my own acoustic so I find that I have to press more "into the keys" at my lessons to get the sound I want.


~omnisis

[chopintod]

A tough situation....glad I never had to face a similar one (although I did practice as a young beginner on an electric keyboard before making the switch to acoustic).

Try reminding your dad that the piano is for you, the student, not for him.  It shouldn't matter what he wants or likes, but what the teacher says is best for the student.

If this doesn't work, definitely have your teacher call him (and him specifically; since you don't mention your mother, I assume she's already fairly convinced) and outline the reasons for an acoustic in explicit detail.

If this doesn't work, move out and live in an elementary school music room.

Terry

PS: that last one was a joke......sort of.

[leahcim]

Mebbe your teacher is right - otoh, mebbe if you'd said you ate cheese at night that would have been the cause of all your bad habits?

Why not start off by inviting your teacher to give you a lesson at your home on the digital - and let them have an opportunity to assess the action and your playing of it for themselves, first hand.

If their conclusions remain, they might even convince Dad at the same time.

OTOH, they might reach the conclusion that you're improving the technique during the lesson but going back to "bad habits" when practising sans a teacher prompting you - that can't be something that has never happened to folks with acoustics, can it?

The "Bad habits" phrase itself suggest, by definition, they are 'a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition" and not necessarily "flaws in the digital action that prevent correct technique" - although "habit" is probably often said when it's not meant - it's not surprising if you've really got bad habits you'll find it difficult to break them.

Others have mentioned the sound - I'll mention the volume - do you mess with it, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, sometimes through speakers, sometimes through headphones? If so, that might not help because if you're trying to get a specific volume you don't want a moving target [although I'd suspect more people play digitals quietly and thus bang away at them to get loud sounds - but Xvimbi's mentioned the pp thing too]

[timothy42b]

Just a thought.

If you turn the master volume on your keyboard up too high, then you will tickle the keys in an attempt to play quietly enough.

I keep ours turned down fairly low, so you have to play it more firmly.  After a little experimentation I got it fairly close to the acoustic the kids play on at lessons.  When the kids played on an inexpensive keyboard, they did have a lot of trouble making progress at lessons, but now that we have a Yamaha with weighted keys there doesn't seem to be much difference. 

Having a decent pedal makes a lot of difference.  The cheap digital pedals are worthless, but the three pedal Yamaha unit seems to be pretty good. 

[chopintod]

Ah, if only.....

Like I said, I played an electric early on......but an electric keyboard.  You know, half the keys and no weight behind them.  My teacher thinks it held me back a year or so...

Oh well...now I have an upright, which, believe me, is better than my keyboard...

Terry

[steve jones]

I strongly agree. Even a 'bag of nails' upright will be better than a midi keyboard. Infact, with guitar atleast, I often theorised that the worse the instrument the better the player has to be!

Half inch action? No problem 

[leahcim]

I strongly agree. Even a 'bag of nails' upright will be better than a midi keyboard. Infact, with guitar atleast, I often theorised that the worse the instrument the better the player has to be!

Half inch action? No problem 

Sounds like a myth - perhaps because of rock star "aggressive" expressions, when miming on video especially, that somehow to play the guitar requires building a great strengthto pull the strings towards the neck as though you're going to fire arrows at the Scots.

The better the guitar, the harder it is to stop it playing, and that's probably the hardest part, especially with an electric.

If the upright is knackered a lot of the stuff that's supposed to be missing from a digital probably won't be on the upright either - depends what's wrong with it though.

[ada]

Hey maybe you should give your parents a break - just because they're your parents doesn't mean they can afford to buy you everything you want. A decent acoustic piano is a pricey item, don't forget. I bet they're already shelling out a lot of money on lessons for you. And I bet there are are some people who would love to play but don't even have a digi. If you're keen and passionate enough you'll work with what you've got. Why don't you get a part time job and start saving up? Then you can suggest to your parents that you'll pitch in for the cost of an acoustic, and they'll see you're serious.
 

[ranakor]

Hey maybe you should give your parents a break - just because they're your parents doesn't mean they can afford to buy you everything you want. A decent acoustic piano is a pricey item, don't forget. I bet they're already shelling out a lot of money on lessons for you. And I bet there are are some people who would love to play but don't even have a digi. If you're keen and passionate enough you'll work with what you've got. Why don't you get a part time job and start saving up? Then you can suggest to your parents that you'll pitch in for the cost of an acoustic, and they'll see you're serious.
 

erm he's not asking for his parents to shell out money but to accept  his teacher loaning him her upright.... i don't see how anything you said relates to his situation

[jeremyjchilds]

erm he's not asking for his parents to shell out money but to accept  his teacher loaning him her upright.... i don't see how anything you said relates to his situation

Don't you love it when people make comments without even reading the post? 

[ada]

erm he's not asking for his parents to shell out money but to accept  his teacher loaning him her upright.... i don't see how anything you said relates to his situation

 :-XOkay, I did jump to a conclusion based on what I thought I read. My apologies pianohopper.

a

[pianohopper]

Its allright, ada.  Although you read wrong, the bit about getting a part time job wasn't a bad idea.  I do have one, and plus I have a significant amount invested in pork-bellies.  Solid investment.  Everybody loves bacon.   

[jeremyjchilds]

Everybody loves bacon.   

Mmmmmm

Pianohopper has got the right idea