Worst piano you've played on

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I occasionally use the piano in the schools basement under the auditorium stage.  It's a Steinway but it's absolutely TERRIBLE!!!  The Ivory or whatever is missing on over half the keys, it's WAY out of tune, extra dusty and old, the lid is cracked in half, and there are a couple keys that play multiple notes at once what the heck?!

So...  What about you guys?

[evitaevita]

Once, I "played" on a really BAD upright piano!!!
I don't even knew the brand name... It had terrible sound and was out of tune. There were notes that their sound lasted for less than a second and some keys didn't play at all. The problem was that I had to play a very fast etude and the keys were so heavy... It also had a key which broke when I hitted it! I mean that the entire wooden part of the key came out!!!
Although, I had the "chance" to play on that piano again, but my teacher and me prefered discussing some interesting issues than having a lesson using that!...
I can't find a reason why such a piano exists in my school...

[hfmadopter]

I occasionally use the piano in the schools basement under the auditorium stage.  It's a Steinway but it's absolutely TERRIBLE!!!  The Ivory or whatever is missing on over half the keys, it's WAY out of tune, extra dusty and old, the lid is cracked in half, and there are a couple keys that play multiple notes at once what the heck?!

So...  What about you guys?

$200 Casio Keyboard, pure junk. At least the Steinway you play on now and then, with some tuning and key tops, splines and glue for the top, a little finish on that top will sound like a piano and feel like a piano. No hope for this casio and it was brand new in the store on display ! As I said, pure junk not even close to a piano experience.

[iansinclair]

Years ago I was a grad. student (not in music -- a misguided phase of my career...) in an engineering college, and the only piano available was a Hamilton spinet.  It's been half a century, and I've never forgotten that contraption.

A bad keyboard, like hfmadopter mentions, is at least sort of forgiveable; it's not a piano after all.  But that thing pretended that it was.

[ajspiano]

i own one of these..

[clavile]

Once I tried to mess with an upright in the basement of an ancient hotel...the keys wouldn't even move...

[ionian_tinnear]

By far the worst:

At Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA, an OLD upright with broken strings, no functional pedals, not tuned since time began, most of the cabinet missing, including the desk.  This is a new, multi-million dollar facility with a nice grand locked in a box.

Disgraceful behavior from the University if you aks me..

[richard black]

I've played some memorably past-it pianos, including, not long ago, some upright piece of junk that was one and a half semitones flat - this _after_ it had been 'tuned', as the theatre manager assured me. Filthy piece of junk.

But in terms of instrument quality, though it was not old and certainly in good condition, perhaps the worst I can remember was an 'Offenbach' (Daewoo) at a venue in Brighton. It had about as much resonance in it as a lump of concrete. Depressing, and I felt particularly sorry for the composer whose songs we were premiering in the concert, especially as he died not long after and never heard them again.

[ahinton]

I've played some memorably past-it pianos, including, not long ago, some upright piece of junk that was one and a half semitones flat - this _after_ it had been 'tuned', as the theatre manager assured me. Filthy piece of junk.

But in terms of instrument quality, though it was not old and certainly in good condition, perhaps the worst I can remember was an 'Offenbach' (Daewoo) at a venue in Brighton. It had about as much resonance in it as a lump of concrete. Depressing, and I felt particularly sorry for the composer whose songs we were premiering in the concert, especially as he died not long after and never heard them again.

That's a terrible story that I'm sure many hear will be sorry to read.

Your reference to "some upright piece of junk" brings to mind that, whilst I am aware that there are such things a decent upright pianos - certain Bösendorfer, Mason & Hamlin, Chickering (if one can find one in fine condition) - I've long since regarded upright pianos as downright pianos...

Best,

Alistair

[kotoko]

I remember playing this terrible, clunky upright piano for a high school recital. My school at the time only had courses for traditional band instruments, but since I was in grade 9 piano at the time, the music teacher invited me (well, more like volunteered me) to perform on the piano at the annual performing arts recital, even though piano wasn't part of the curriculum back then.

The venue had the aforementioned piano, which we used. It was old, not tuned (at least, not very well), and the loudest I could achieve from it was probably a mezzo-forte (which pains me, because I've always been complimented for my expressiveness and use of dynamics). The keys were clunky and difficult to press, and every time I used the damper pedal, the keys shifted noticeably. Speaking of the pedals, for some reason they were unusually high off the floor, meaning every time I had to lift my foot off the pedal, I had to physically lift my entire foot off the floor.

It was universally agreed upon after the recital that the piano was terrible was never to be used again by our music department.

[hfmadopter]

Speaking of the pedals, for some reason they were unusually high off the floor, meaning every time I had to lift my foot off the pedal, I had to physically lift my entire foot off the floor.

It was universally agreed upon after the recital that the piano was terrible was never to be used again by our music department.

I was invited to the music club I guess it was called, at the high school here in town ( like you I was volunteered by my piano teacher at the time, though I did agree). Anyway, it was an after school club that met, several students of the band and I was an adult. That's fine, the piano was a Baldwin upright in nice condition but it was on a roll around carriage, so everything was high including the pedals. A couple of inches is very noticable. I don't recall what I played, I do recall that my foot was at an odd angle to the pedals though. What ever I played was memorized, I went there with no music in hand. My teacher did these things to get us playing out in the community.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I remember playing this terrible, clunky upright piano for a high school recital. My school at the time  of the pedals, for some reason they were unusually high off the floor, meaning every time I had to lift my foot off the pedal, I had to physically lift my entire foot off the floor.

Lol that's normal for me.  When I use the pedal, I keep my knee stuck to the bottom of the piano and when I take it off I lift my whole foot off the ground. 

[ahinton]

One thing that i will say in Ms Lisitsa's favour is that she knows and appears to appreciate a good Bösendorfer when she encounters one!

Best,

Alistair

[rachmaninoff_forever]

One thing that i will say in Ms Lisitsa's favour is that she knows and appears to appreciate a good Bösendorfer when she encounters one!

Best,

Alistair

That's one thing I don't like about her.

But that's okay because I'm still in love with her!

[ahinton]

That's one thing I don't like about her.

But that's okay because I'm still in love with her!

Well, that's your prerogative, of course but it's one thing that I do appreciate about her and I am absolutely not in love with her (I couldn't be, anyway, as I have never even met her - perhaps you might take a hint from that fact)...

Best,

Alistair

[indianajo]

Some super salesmen covered Louisville in Winter Pianos a couple of decades ago. He must have been really something, because these things are frequently listed on craigslist with a starting price of $1200. I think they were the cheap version of the Kimball, which was a decent sounding console with no durability (try one in the Army Base officer's or NCO's club sometimes, usually totally worn out)  The Winter I tried to help tune was a spinet a friend had, no dynamic range at all, no repeat key velocity, and more than one note sounded at once on some keys. When I opened it up to see whatdis? some hammer shafts were bent over to where the hammer wasn't even hitting the right three strings.  What a piece of trash.  Rather than donate it, we took an auto body grinder, some safety glasses, and a power saw, and cut up in small enough pieces to fit in the trash can over several weeks.  
By contrast, the church has a very competent Hamilton that that won't let me play because the veneer is cracked on the front.  I won't play their boomy listless Yamaha, so they play their boring choice of  repretoire without me.

[cmg]

Scheduled some years ago to do a recital run-through at the home of some rich folk with a Steinway M.  A brand new one.  They bought it as furniture, so it was never voiced, regulated, etc.  Worse yet, the day before I played, a water pipe broke in a bathroom the floor above and doused the piano but good, just beneath it.   

When I went to the folks's house that morning to try out the piano, the housekeeper was frantically blowing hair dryers into the piano's saturated guts.  Heaters with fans were under the instrument pouring out blast-furnace heat to dry the carpeting under the piano and the soundboard.

And there was this STENCH.  "What IS that?" I asked the housekeeper.  "Cat pee," she said. "Years and years of cat pee re-activated by the soaked carpet.  Don't worry:  we'll pour perfume over it when it dries."

Needless to say, the program I played that evening was a horror-show.  The Steinway, basically, sounded like a prepared piano; the damper pedal squeaked and honked.  The action was a joke.  And the smell around me was indescribable:  A litter box in a bordello.  I can never hear Beethoven Op. 27 No 1 without smelling that room.  To this day. 

[thesixthsensemusic]

Well, my best mate owns a piano by some obscure builder from Freiburg, Germany, inherited from his grandparents who had it in their restaurant years ago, just as a piece of furniture. All the keys actually work as do the pedals but the thing sounds muffled, like all the strings are oxidated and the felt on the hammers eaten by bugs... I've been telling him to get it restored because I am quite sure it's a well-built instrument, after decades of neglect it still functions mechanically, but so far he hasn't, can't blame him though since neither him nor his girlfriend play piano.

[keys60]

The worst pianos I have played (not really performed) AND tuned are Lester and Betsy Ross spinets. Both old free beaters taken home by elementary school staff, rescued from the dumpster. However, they both had 88 working notes and I've never really seen a piano that I actually hated. Whatever brings joy to the owner, I guess.

[vsrinivasa]

My friend's really old spinet, I think the brand is Kimball. The keys are so stiff and half the time pushing the key doesn't make a sound because the mechanism is broken. All the pedals are broken as well. I absolutely hate it.

[lanierlaw]

1. I was invited to play for a fundraising reception for a local mental health org at an major insurance company Hdq. They had an upright spinet with missing front, no bench, and its last tuning had to have been 25 yrs before. It needed to be put down with a ball bat and 3 attendees needed lithium abd Thorazine injections to recover from the insufferable sound!

2. When I was much younger I was moving from one apt to another and the moving company dropped my 42" Baldwin on its back. They took it on up to my living room to lie in state. The sound board had cracked and the keys reminded me of that song"Over The Waves". The insurance adjuster who knew nothing about pianos came to inspect. I knew others from his office from auto wrecks I handled. He just didn't see it as a total loss. I told him I'd have to file suit in court and would have the Baldwin dealer to testify as my expert. This unnerved him such that he dropped his metal Polaroid camera on the bench (the only undamaged part of the piano).  He turned to me and said, "Well, it looks like it is a total loss... And the bench is included." Within a week I had a check for the replacement cost and bought a new one!

3. Going to play at events, you never know what you will encounter---usually "marginal" describes what hotels, corporations, etc have---they are rarely tuned, usually abused, and make better war stories than music! I now take a Yamaha ES-8 for gigs!

[benzwm02]

Kimball uprights are horrible

[hbofinger]

I don't know, there are so many. I'd really have to refine the question. If you'd ask the worst piano I ever owned, I'd say the Wellington Cable Company upright in our house clearly beats the record.

The worst new piano I ever played was some $700 Chinese console job at a dealership. Ewww!

The worst expensive new piano I ever played was a brand new S&S B at a retirement home. Boy, did the dealership take them for a ride!

The worst piano now in my family vicinity is my father-in-law's Steinert Spinet. It is brutal to the ears! Spinets/consoles in general are bad, but for example I take the Baldwin Acrosonic seriously and consider it a great instrument for a console. So my attitude on the Steinert is not just due to the fact it's a spinet (with some work, I theoretically could get that piano back into shape, but I don't think it is worth it...)

[p2u_]

    
Worst piano you've played on

Must have been an old Petrof while I was still living in Holland. The only way to get a simple mezzo forte out of that thing was the Hanon approach: Lift the fingers high and strike as hard as possible with lots of arm and body weight added...

Paul

[ruvidoetostinato]

Well, I didn't really play anything on it.  It was that bad.

I went to Philippines 2 years ago for vacation and one of my family members had a piano.   Asked me to play on it.

To say it was bad is just an understatement.

30% of the thing had broken hammers.

Nothing was in tune.

When I tried to play a chromatic scale.  m2 became P4, M2 became P8, went from what should be a B to a C, it went from B down to an F. 

In a sense it was kind of fun.  I played some stuff, and they came out  completely different.  It's like when I was a kid and would set a keyboard to drum settings and then play a piece.

[ruvidoetostinato]

OH YEAH. 

And supposedly their child has piano lessons on it.

[rjarsenault1101]

worst one I played on is the one I own. most of the keys stick. I think that's enough to make that a plausible answer.

[murphdog]

Worst I've ever played was an 1885 Chickering 8'10 concert grand.  Obviously a lot can go wrong over 125 years but it was disappointing after reading such rave reviews about Chickerings.  Very narrowly built scale, dull tone, out of tune, but the biggest turn off was the plastic glossy cheap ass keys. 

The guy wanted $13000 for it lol.  At the time I had a Baldwin Acrosonic that I bought for $250 and there was no difference between the two.  Maybe it would have been a great fixer but for a total overhaul plus purchase price, I think I could find a better buy at 25k.

[rocklandpiano]

A year ago I stayed at a villa with a group of friends. There was an upright in the entry hall, right by the door, and another in the large living room. I thought both sounded terrible; I had only ever heard my own digital and the usual concert grands. Turns out, small upright piano's were supposed to sound that way. So ignorant!

[pianist1976]

"Worst piano you've played on"

It's hard to tell. Along my 25 years career I've played in so many terrible pianos... So let's recall a few of them:

- A Daewoo upright. Yes, Daewoo does not only build cars, they also make a bunch of awfull pianos.
- At least three ~100 years old upright pianos, unrestored, unmantained, untuned, un- every word you can imagine
- I've played on two nice concert halls with ~400 seats both with a ridiculous out of tune baby grand (!!!!!). Sometimes I think that those kind of things only use to happen in my country.

More to come.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Apparently some dick face decided to vandalize the worst piano in the school.

So in the lower register, there's a whole octave where NONE of the notes work. 

So it's like the worst piano I already said I played on previously, but on steroids.

[evitaevita]

- A Daewoo upright. Yes, Daewoo does not only build cars, they also make a bunch of awfull pianos.

Wow! That's pretty funny!!!
I didn't know that there was such a piano brand...

[hfmadopter]

One thing that i will say in Ms Lisitsa's favour is that she knows and appears to appreciate a good Bösendorfer when she encounters one!

Best,

Alistair

Yes my wife was watching an interview with Valentina and she stated something like ( paraphrasing here) grand pianos are like sports cars but Bosendorfer's have more vrooommm. She's rather a hot ticket, to listen to her speak she seems like a neat person, I understand why "Her Husband" ( Rachmaninoff-forever where are you) fell in love with her.

[thepianist09]

The piano at the house of a friend of mine is frighteningly unplayable. Most of the strings are missing, all of the dampers have gone, many notes are missing and the notes that remain have become so stuck you have to use all your weight pressing down on it to play a note, which is in turn extremely out of tune (and by out of tune I mean if you play middle C it will play the F# above it, C# will play G etc). I am not joking. It is unbelievable.

[magic_sonata]

Worst piano I ever played on was an upright Baldwin. Absolutely horrifying. It was out of tune, dirty, and the sustain pedal was stuck. The sound wasn't very good, anyways.

Never playing on a Baldwin again.

[hfmadopter]

Worst piano I ever played on was an upright Baldwin. Absolutely horrifying. It was out of tune, dirty, and the sustain pedal was stuck. The sound wasn't very good, anyways.

Never playing on a Baldwin again.

That's a funny thought. It's like driving a Volvo ready for the junk yard, torn seats, faded paint, runs rough and deciding based on that to never drive a Volvo again !