Can you be too good for your piano??

[Celeste]

I got my oldish (don't know when it was made) Wurlitzer spinnet when I was maybe.....nine, a few years after I began playing piano. It was fine then, but now that I'm more advanced, it doesn't seem sufficient. I can't play very fast passages or runs on it without making mistakes because it's just a, well, mediocre piano . Is it just my that's making my pieces sound messy, or could I possibly have "outgrown" my piano?

[eddie92099]

Most certainly,
Ed

[BoliverAllmon]

One can definately be better than the piano that one has. This reminds me of a story that my teacher told me. Several years back the government had a serious excess of money and would hire pianists to play in the white house for specail meetings or balls, banquets, or any other occassion. Well, one of my teacher's friends was hired to play at a banquet for the president. Everything was rushed and he wasn't able to practice on the piano before performing, so he was nervous. Well, he started playing and was doing good, until he hit the pedals a little too hard apparently and the whole pedal system fell completely off! Needless to say his performance for the evening was over. It did cause a good laugh though.

boliverallmon

[eddie92099]

The same thing happened to Baremboim once in a concerto performance. However, he carried on and his legato fingering carried him through - a lesson to us all!
Ed

[NetherMagic]

Celeste, according to the Piano Book written by Larry Fine (and beforehand thanx to all here in pianoforum who recommended me to read the book) says that you should NEVER, EVER buy a spinnet

and answering your question yes the equation "you > piano" is possible  

[jlh]

Yes, you can most certainly outgrow your piano.  This happened to me several years ago when I started learning piano.  I had an OLD upright piano that served me nicely for about a year.  Then as my playing progressed, I found that my fingers were moving faster than the piano was, and knew something was wrong.  The theory behind this is simple.  Upright pianos have a markedly slower action because the hammers hit horizontally instead of vertically as in grand pianos.  There may be more to it, but I'm sure the direction the hammers hit is 90% of the problem.