How important is the Instrument?

[steve jones]

Just curious to know how important people rate their pianos, with regards to their playing and development? I know most would agree that using an acoustic is the way to go, but could using a poor quality, bad condition acoustic be worse than an electric?

My piano is in pretty bad order. Its an old upright from some unheard of manufacturer. Very out of tune, uneven tone etc. Its totally playable, but only to yourself!

Is this likely to have a detrimental impact on my playing?

[thierry13]

If he's out of tune, it sure has a detrimental impact on your hearing skills. But on your technical development ... well, I guess it does the job. For advanced musical aspects tough, it could be lacking in some ways.

[quantum]

Learning on an inferior stages at least in some part of your development will allow you to develop your technique in such a way that if you are ever given an inferior instrument to play it will not be such a traumatic experience.  Being pianists we don't carry around our instruments, we may experience anything from the beat up out of tune upright, to the most exquisite concert grands. 

Before I got my grand, I played on my beat up Kawai upright.  It wasn't a bad piano (considering I could have had worse), but I always thought it didn't allow me to express myself well enough.  I got to a point where I disliked that piano so much I was going to experiment to what extreemes the instrument would go before breaking.  Such experimentation actually led to me to develop my improvisation skills.  Although I didn't know it at the time - I never really thought that punching the keys like a martial artist breaks wood could be considered improv.  As I continued to experiment I realized I was more and more capable of producing a greater diversity of sounds and thus incorporated them into my playing. 

If I had always played on a "good" instrument, I would never have discovered improvisation the way I did or had the idea to push the instrument to it's physical limits to achieve a greater variety of tone.  Additionaly due to the continuing declining health of the old beat up piano, I started taking an interest in piano repair and tuning.  Although I still leave serious repairs to the technician, i've learned to do minor adjustments and retune the odd note that goes "sour" every onece in a while.   

[steve jones]

Funnily enough that has been my own opinion for many years. As a guitarist it always used to make me laugh how allegedly top notch players could only work on their own instruments. The REALLY good players could make any plank sounds amazing.

Im not to concerned about my hearing skill - when I try to think of a pitch I usually think of the open guitar strings anyway. The piano will always be foreign turf i think.

[alzado]

If it is out of tune, why not just have it tuned?

You may not be able to afford a new piano, but I would imagine you could come up with $75 for a tuning.

In that respect, your question seems rather ridiculous.

[steve jones]

I wouldnt say that. Im purely trying to understand at what point I might require a new piano, pure and simple. If I can continue to learn on this thing (with the obvious dab of tlc), then I will do so.

The reason I ask is that I remember advising woodwind players to upgrade from student instruments at around gr5 - 6. The tone produced by cheap plastic instruments is insufficient to facilitate the necessary development in ombisure. If this is indeed the case with piano (which I doubt) then I may need to take financial steps now in order to purchase a quality instrument in the future.

See, not ridiculous afterall.

[leahcim]

I wouldnt say that. Im purely trying to understand at what point I might require a new piano, pure and simple.

cheap != knackered or out of tune, although there might be quality differences it's not the same question.

I know you've spoke of 1/2" actions elsewhere and said that a good player should be able to make any guitar sound amazing.

That to me is simply not true. If anything my experience [which is limited] suggests that playing a good instrument is more difficult if anything.

Of course a knackered instrument may appear hard in some way that's not technique [like, if your guitar is in two pieces you might fancy yourself gifted if you can hold the pieces together and play, or if the action is so high that you need an iron grip to play a chord or note -  convoluted examples perhaps, but those skills aren't really guitar playing]

There is a thread / flamefest in here with a discussion about developing "finger strength" or some other "strength" - it's worth reading - I know which side of that argument I agree with, but YMMV and I'm no expert. But to me you sound as though you think defects improve technique and I'm not sure that's true.

Similary, if punching a piano like a martial artist isn't something you'd do with a new steinway, it's not much use as a technique. So to me that sounds thin, as though you can't experiment with improv or new sounds on a new grand piano. Similary, if you are asked to play a knackered or out of tune piano somewhere why would you care what it sounds like? They obviously don't. If you do care, don't play, if you don't, count the money. It's not going to sound good because you played a different knackered piano.

At the moment your piano will sound out of tune whoever plays it, to me that means it won't sound amazing. OTOH, what is amazing to one person isn't to another - you could probably tell by looking that someone was amazing if the piano didn't make any sound at all.

Most knackered instruments will, by definition, have defects that affect the sound and feel [if they don't then that aspect which is knackered isn't worth considering] but that's not the same as cheap.

So I would say, the time to get a more expensive piano is when you hear and feel the difference that the more expensive one makes and that difference matters w.r.t technique or pieces that require a particular sound or perhaps in a more arty-farty sense, because the better tone etc gives you inspiration etc etc.

But a knackered or out of tune piano is a knackered or out of tune piano, cheap or expensive you'd expect the time to replace or fix it to be now, unless there's some reason you can't.

[steve jones]

"I know you've spoke of 1/2" actions elsewhere and said that a good player should be able to make any guitar sound amazing."

Not exactly true. If you quote me directly then you'll see that my point was a little different. I said that I had observed self proclaimed 'quality' guitarists who could only play on their particular instrument, while others who I felt truely amazing weren't nearly as choosey.

The point being its very easy to blame the instrument for insufficient skill. I dont know if this is something you get much in the piano world, but you get it all the time in other musical disciplines.


"That to me is simply not true. If anything my experience [which is limited] suggests that playing a good instrument is more difficult if anything."

Im sorry, you have completely lost me with that one!


"But to me you sound as though you think defects improve technique and I'm not sure that's true."

Not in a month of Sunday's my good man. Infact, the whole purpose of this thread was to discover whether the opposite might be true - could defects actually hinder development?


Please dont get the wrong idea - this thread was never intended to be controversial. Im merely trying to get some opinions on a fairly simple and straight forward question. Not sure why all the negativity? Maybe Alzado or youself could explain?

[spirithorn]

There's probably a reason that Chopin insisted that his students only practice on quality instruments.  Unfortunately, many of us do not have that luxury.  But it is a good argument for playing on the better instruments if possible.

[steve jones]

If thats the case, then I think I should cancel his invitation to my dinner party next week 

[spirithorn]

If thats the case, then I think I should cancel his invitation to my dinner party next week 

Don't bother.  He's never even responded to any of my invitations.

[leahcim]

If you quote me directly then you'll see that my point was a little different. I said that I had observed self proclaimed 'quality' guitarists who could only play on their particular instrument, while others who I felt truely amazing weren't nearly as choosey.

Well, no, you didn't. If I quote you directly you said "The REALLY good players could make any plank sounds amazing" which is simply not true nor is it giving the point you've given here Although your new point sounds reasonable and I've no desire to argue about who said what - except to point out that the rest of my post was based on what you said originally, not what you're saying it means now

"But to me you sound as though you think defects improve technique and I'm not sure that's true."

Not in a month of Sunday's my good man. Infact, the whole purpose of this thread was to discover whether the opposite might be true - could defects actually hinder development?

Fair enough, I misinterpreted your 1/2" action comment in the other thread.
It's patently obvious that defects can hinder development though. How? That depends on the defects - specifics rather than generalities.

Not sure why all the negativity? Maybe Alzado or youself could explain?

Well as I said, there's 2 basic themes from you afaict. "Cheap" and "Broken / out of tune" - from what you originally said I got the impression [since clarified above] that a "broken / out of tune instrument" is (a) playable and (b) will sound amazing if a good player plays it.

If you don't believe that, fix the #$%# piano OTOH, you seem to be flying through piano stuff, so mebbe it doesn't matter for you. e.g I'd struggle like mad on a piano that gave an uneven tone because I wouldn't know if it was me that's being uneven or the piano - if you can develop good technique irrespective of the sound you create, go for it.

As for the cheap w.r.t an instrument [like the plastic woodwind] not being able to do everything a more expensive piano can, I'd say definately, but I can't help there. How cheap is too cheap isn't something I can answer.

One last point, you didn't understand why an expensive instrument might be harder? I'd say at least 2 reasons. Because it'll show the defects in your playing, especially if your cheap / broken instrument hasn't allowed you to develop good technique. e.g if ppp through p all sound the same, you might find that your quiet playing is completely uneven, whereas it might sound even on the cheap instrument.

In some cases [electric guitars spring to mind] it'll make sounds if you play it incorrectly that a cheap guitar won't - sounds that you use good technique to avoid.

[bearzinthehood]

In my experience with classical guitar it seems like really good guitars are difficult to play because of how revealing they are.  I suppose it's a valid point for electric guitars though, the more money you spend the easier it becomes to be a wanker that sounds like he knows what he's doing.

[steve jones]

Precisely bearzinthehood.

But I also find this applies to classical guitar too. Or maybe I just use different criteria to everyone else when selecting instruments!

For me the best guitar is the one that seems to play itself. The one that after playing, no other guitar seems the same. Unfortunately I can rarely afford these types of guitar so a compromise has to be made. But never the less, these are still the qualities I look for.

Music never sounded as good as it does on a guitar of my choice (at least not with me behind the wheel).


"the more money you spend the easier it becomes to be a wanker that sounds like he knows what he's doing."

I wouldnt necessarily say the more money you spend. There are really expensive guitars around that play like a bag of nails. Conversely, I was always impressed with how sweet the ole Pacifca's play.

But if you want the 'Super Satch Ibanez Fretboard Wanker Shred Master Mexicaster ...' then it's not likely to come cheap!