why Steinway's piano keys feel so heavy to me???

[cucudas]

i had a rehersal at my school
i played Rachmaninoff etude op39.no1. and the steinway piano felt so heave for me
so for the right hand i missed many keys
...why is that happening???
how can i avoid that?
i even have stage freight so i cannot concentrate so well on performing
state freight + feels heavy on steinway piano keys = makes me feel depressed!!

[Kassaa]

Most steinways play very light. It's different for every piano.

[qwerty quaver]

spam

[lostinidlewonder]

In my experience all Steinways feel different. Probably because they are all hand made. Sometimes one which is very damange or in a bad environment will feel/sound awful, especially if it is a big instrument in a smaller room.

[pianomann1984]

Practice your pieces slowly and very legato, even when the actual phrasing says otherwise to get used to always going right to the bottom of the keys and still staying relaxed by releasing your full arm weight.  This way, even when you are nervous you will not miss/skate over notes.  Also, older Steinways can be quite heavy to the touch, as you describe.  If you are having stamina problems, then you need to work very carefully on individual finger strength with excersises (either written ones, or you can divise your own).  You say you have a concert soon, so don't worry too much about this now - finger strength cannot be improved overnight, and takes much patience, but it is a valuable future thought.  Try the slow, relaxed legato practice - it always works very well for me.

[sonatainfsharp]

The 1972 Steinway I played during my undergrad not only felt heavy, but the key depth was actually different. After complaining about "something that feels wrong" for three years, finally, during my last year, I suggested the key depth may be off, and sure enough, the tech looked at it, and it was about a milimeter deeper than most pianos. I figured it out because I was playing scales and I would always smash my fingers on the front edge of the black keys and it felt like a chore to lift my fingers high enough to play the black keys--never happened on any other piano.

That piano, however, was my favorite piano in the world. Everyone complained about the depth (not knowing what it was) and the heaviness, but the control you had was simply amazing.

As you play on more and more pianos over the course of time, you just get good at adjusting after only a note or two, literally.