digital study

Everything you say, I share and I also believe to be objectively right. One must not abuse digital sound. Studying on a good acoustic piano makes the pianist progress better. Digital is very convenient for studying with headphones... maybe learning pieces, filling those study times... when the neighbors and family are sleeping! Nothing more than this.

Hi Paolo

happy new year to you and everyone ..............

study on an acoustic [piano], even one for 300 euros (but with the action in good order), it will still be better than those plastic things that prevent you from finding the sound which is the basis of study, the rest is "nonsense"

ps. let's hope it is better than the past one and that the lentils serve their purpose

Happy New Year to you and everyone! The lentil will do its part!

Anyway, a piano... that works and sounds. It's logical that an old "cellar" upright that doesn't move and has layered rust on the strings is not to be preferred. However, when the instrument is valid, one can proceed with a good restoration, perhaps with work spread out over time. It is true that in shopping malls you find upright pianos that appear new for just over 2000-3000 Euros, but then many little things are discovered that don't work. Proceeding with a "value" restoration means putting back on its feet an instrument of "value," especially with materials identical or suitable to the originals.

I don't quite agree with everything that has been said. If I have to play on an acoustic instrument that doesn't work, then it is much better to play on a working digital one. Certainly, on a digital, it is not possible to take advantage of all those beautiful nuances that come out on an acoustic just by thinking them (half pedaling, vibrato pedal, una corda, legato, staccato, repeated notes, etc.). One thing is certain: if you play on a digital for a long time and then return to an acoustic, the difference is felt, but perhaps only for the first 10 minutes. The difference in touch when moving from a digital to an acoustic piano is not that different from what one feels when moving from one's own studio piano to another piano, for example, to perform a concert. In my opinion, the important thing is that the pianist always keeps the music in mind. Realizing it on the piano, whatever that may be as long as it is in good condition, is only a matter of adapting to that type of mechanics and if, the same pianist, is endowed with good technique, the lag is not that destructive. Generally, in 20 minutes, at most in an hour, in truly exceptional cases, one regains the right feeling with the keyboard.

Why do people buy a digital piano?

- When you live in a condominium with hateful neighbors like mine, where if you play half an hour more per day beyond the hours permitted by law, in the best-case scenario, you have to argue with them at the next condo meeting and in the worst case, they actually come to your house to play.

- When available economic resources do not allow you to buy an upright or grand piano, or when economic resources only allow you to access a battered acoustic with stuck keys.

- When you want to play at night without disturbing your wife and children, dedicating yourself alone and without interruptions to your hours of musical relaxation.

- When you need to move from one place to another and calling a company to move your piano starts costing a fortune.

- If you are a composer and need to play on a keyboard that allows you, connected to a computer, to take advantage of all the sample libraries of all the instruments existing on this planet.

- If you already have an acoustic piano but want the keyboard, which your children play on with hands covered in pizza oil, not to be that of your acoustic.

- If you cannot afford a tuner twice a year to fix mechanics and tuning -> The digital never goes out of tune.

etc.

etc.

Obviously I have omitted the most obvious point... If you have a 120,000 euro Steinway D and live alone in a villa in the countryside where the nearest neighbor is 10 km away, it's obvious that a digital won't do you any good!

all true, but I took it for granted.....

I am talking about sound, even just of a single note if you want.

on digital you learn the gymnastics but you can only find the sound on an acoustic; digitals can give the illusion of this and the risk is then believing it, but......

You wouldn't, for example, teach your 6-year-old son to do additions with a calculator, well I wouldn't.

scaloppa wrote:

You would, for example, teach your 6-year-old son to do additions with a calculator, well, I wouldn't.

A metaphor that doesn't hold up. The two things are not comparable in these terms. If you provide your son with a calculator, he will make correct calculations but will never understand how to obtain them without it; if you provide him with a good digital piano and a good teacher, he will certainly learn to play it, and may even develop perfect pitch since he will surely be in contact with an instrument that is always in tune. Perhaps he won't develop a highly refined sensitivity to touch, although the latter seems more like a preconceived position to me than a real analysis of the possibilities offered by recent instruments.

Personally, I have formed some ideas on the matter.

1) learning the piano means playing it for several hours every day with repeated exercises. In modern dwellings, if they are not detached villas, one cannot avoid playing with headphones if one does not want to compromise relationships with the neighbors. In detached villas, however, you must have very, very understanding family members.

2) One cannot speak of digital as a single product. There are digitals with mechanics identical to those of acoustic grand pianos that produce highly credible sounds.

3) one cannot speak of the acoustic piano as a single product. There are unplayable acoustic pianos that remain in tune on average for the first 5 minutes after the technician has said goodbye to you.

Therefore:

4) a good digital is better than a terrible acoustic

5) A good digital is better than a good acoustic that is always out of tune

Corollary to points 4 and 5. One must use a good digital.

PS. the piano makes an infernal racket. It is unthinkable to impose it on one's neighbors for hours if one knows how to play, and all the more so if one is studying to learn how to play it.