In hotel suite - have a Yamaha G1 in the room...

[hbofinger]

This is an interesting one.

I am in Cologne, Germany, for our Christmas vacation, and somehow got a suite that actually has a grand piano in the living room. I did not bring my printed music, but I had it on my laptop, so I was able to at first practice from memory and when I got stuck look up a passage or two on the laptop.

I had never played a Yamaha G1 before. This one was tuned, but no serious maintenance seemed to have been done of it. Here is what I found and felt:

Surprise: The lowest of the base on this 5'3" baby grand had a gowling tone. It was able to carry the most important base notes of Chopin's second ballade with full authority.

The middle of the base started getting thumpy. This is what I suspected a very small grand to sound throughout. What blew me away is that the bottom fared so well.

The treble carried the obvious benefits of duplexing. I was able to make it sing.

The biggest drawback is a very stiff action, which I suspect is due to the lack of maintenance (may need new bushing & pins in the hammer shanks, or who knows what else)

I am a piano snob, or at least for a long time considered myself to be one. I was surprised at the hidden potential in this small grand. I suspect about US$ 1000 or so would get the action going again. Though I am no expert at scale design, I suspect with the resonance of the bottom bass, the middle base's thumpyness could be fixed by some voicing. I am not surprised to see that as a mass-produced non-premium piano, in good shape, this discontinued model still pulls about US$ 8,000 in the market.

[hfmadopter]

I've been surprised by some shorter stringed pianos as well regarding the lower bass. 30 years ago or so my teachers Steinway S had a surprisingly good deep bass with a so so transition to the middle scale. The mid scale around middle C was great. The upper treble I thought could be better and the regulation on that piano got worse and worse as the years past. I guess it was the best it was ever going to be when I first started lessons and didn't know how to play very well ! I did get one good intermediate level recital out of it before it went down hill though.

One rather short Wurlitzer console fooled me, over all really. Nice tone throughout. Ya the bass could have stronger but it was even and it was after all a console, much better than I ever expected from it.

I played on another small grand in a professors living room that had basically no bass, that's more what I expect to hear from short grand pianos. That piano compared with my 5'11" Henry F Miller was a lost cause regarding bass and that was before my bass string work I did on it. my Miller has a healthy bass except for a couple of tricky notes to tune down there.

But ya, good for you to land a room with a piano in it at all !!

[hbofinger]

We (my wife and I) are on vacation. What more better time to practice? Don't have to worry about careers and so on, just switch off and start obsessing about the left hand controlling the time while the right hand is aiming for the right notes...

[hfmadopter]

We (my wife and I) are on vacation. What more better time to practice? Don't have to worry about careers and so on, just switch off and start obsessing about the left hand controlling the time while the right hand is aiming for the right notes...

Enjoy your vacation !