High seat position

[maxd]

are there ANY disadvantages to a high seat position?

[Kassaa]

are there ANY disadvantages to a high seat position?

Playing with your shoulders and arms and playing with high wrist instead of your fingers. Less control over finger movement.

[iumonito]

It also reduces the angles at which you can comfortably play, which in turn reduces the tools for tone coloring.

You gain, though, a good vantage point for playing with power.  Better for Prokofiev and at least one school of thought on the Tchaikowsky concerto 1.

You can color a lot if you are seating low, but then you loose volume.

In the middle, you can have both.

[cloches_de_geneve]

I like to sit low (usually the lowest possible with standard piano-chairs). Like this, it feels like my fingers really penetrate the keys. Maybe this comes from playing a lot of Mozart and Schubert, where nuances in articulation are so important.

Who of the big pianists sits high, who low?

Gould sat definitly low and even needed a special chair; so does Lupu.
Barenboim sits very high ...to be continued.

[franzliszt2]

I change my height all the time. I'm sort of in the middle at the moment, but at the start of the year I was sitting high. Without realising the height of my seating position has went down, and I only discovered this when I came home for my Christmas holiday, and my stool (which is never touched when I'm not home) was so high. I couldn;t believe it. I think that the height of the stool should never be set. I just see how I feel.

But take into acount the affect it will have on sound etc.. but that has a lot to do with piano. Apparently some pianists take longer looking for a stool than for th piano. Personally, I prefer to take my stool, after a bad experience where I had to do a concerto on a normal seat, which was too low, and I had to sit on a cushion! 

[ted]

My position is neither high nor low. I think I used to sit a little higher than I do now but not significantly so.

[pianistimo]

low.  it doesn't hurt your back.  if you sit high - you'll get a hump.  or, pianists 'neck.'  you know - head forward.

[timothy42b]

I use an office chair so I can adjust the height.  I am considering moving it higher, because lately it feels like my forearm wants to be higher and my fingers lower, if that makes any sense.

But I also play some organ, and there you are just stuck.  The bench is fixed height to clear the pedals, and you have multiple keyboards at different heights, so I don't know how you could possibly play "correctly." 

[thalbergmad]

I tend to use a high seat position for no other reason than i like the view of the keys from higher up.

Thal