Piano Forum

It's an interesting idea.

I can only give anecdotes, but since my gear is oriented for a stage setup (I can have it all packed up and on the road in about 15 minutes, with a bit of cursing, including spare cables and all that), I only use a plain old chair.

I don't adjust the distance (except of course at the beginning of a set), but I adjust the whole upper torso depending on the music,  And, yes, for each piece or tune, it's slightly different.

I find it easier to move myself around the instrument, rather than move the instrument around me.

The one other variable is where I put the sustain pedal (and other pedals, depending on the kind of music). 

At a bar-room job, I'll either grab a barstool (trust me, most places have some "extra"s hidden around in some dusty corner) or sit on my PA speaker put on its side.  It's just a job to me, so even if it's not ideal, I can do it for a handful of hours and it's fine.  I know a lot of people use portable solutions like collapsible stools or drum thrones, but I just plain would rather not carry the extra gear.  A good portion of the time is spent arguing with players I've never met before and smiling at the audience, anyway.

For me, the chair or seat is much less important than the physical relationship to the keyboard, which I can adjust by just moving my body in varying ways to the keyboard(s) itself.  And my relationship to the sustain pedal (playing out, I don't need the traditional three-pedal unit, just a little sustain pedal).

The only thing I can't do (or maybe just "won't" do) is play standing up.  I don't like playing that way, my keyboard stands aren't ideal for that, and I think it's just...completely odd.  I don't even like playing guitar standing up with a strap.  It's not a classical guitar thing:  I mostly do rudimentary jazz guitar.  It just doesn't seem right to me.