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So I am at the spot where I am pretty sure I want to continue with this hobby. I am aiming to move states in a year or two, so getting an acoustic piano seems unwise. Could I get some advice on higher end keyboards? My budget is under $4k. I understand that nothing really mimics an actual acoustic instrument, but would like to come reasonably close.
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Sep 26, 2020 21:20
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pokie posted:So I am at the spot where I am pretty sure I want to continue with this hobby. I am aiming to move states in a year or two, so getting an acoustic piano seems unwise. Could I get some advice on higher end keyboards? My budget is under $4k. I understand that nothing really mimics an actual acoustic instrument, but would like to come reasonably close. If you mean digital pianos (as opposed to more portable keyboards) then Kawai CA series are some of the very best pure digitals, from my experience. While some of them are above your budget, the CA59 isn't I believe.
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Sep 26, 2020 23:52
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:If you mean digital pianos (as opposed to more portable keyboards) then Kawai CA series are some of the very best pure digitals, from my experience. While some of them are above your budget, the CA59 isn't I believe. Yeah, that could work. How would you compare these to the real deal? Is there a big jump in quality between the models?
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Sep 27, 2020 00:07
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pokie posted:So I am at the spot where I am pretty sure I want to continue with this hobby. I am aiming to move states in a year or two, so getting an acoustic piano seems unwise. Could I get some advice on higher end keyboards? My budget is under $4k. I understand that nothing really mimics an actual acoustic instrument, but would like to come reasonably close. Get a cheap upright and give it away when you move, imo. *edit* Post your craigslist if you want help picking something that's worth investigating, I've done a lot of piano shopping so I have a general idea of what to look for and avoid. Stringent fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Sep 27, 2020 |
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Sep 27, 2020 00:25
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pokie posted:Yeah, that could work. How would you compare these to the real deal? Is there a big jump in quality between the models? Obviously as you've alluded to it's inherently impossible for a digital to truly recreate an acoustic instrument, and which is probably why the market has expanded to include pricey hybrid models too. For me, while DPs have steadily improved sonically over the years, you are only going to achieve so much on that front with these things and the touch is the most important thing; that is the best thing about my CA97 I would say. No, it doesn't match a real grand there either, but it feels good under the fingers and lends itself to dynamic and expressive playing. I believe the CA59 has a slightly scaled down version of the Grand Feel action the 99 (latest version of my 97) has, but I couldn't tell you too much about more of the specific differences, other than there are jumps in sonic quality up through the models, though I wouldn't wonder if some of those differences couldn't be mitigated through using decent headphones.
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Sep 27, 2020 02:27
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Alright fuckers, I managed to browbeat my partner into letting me get an acoustic piano, and sent my duplex neighbor (who is my landlord) a note to make sure I don't get evicted for this. My CL https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sby/msg?query=piano Another goon saw this there: https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/msg/d/san-jose-2011-yamaha-upright-piano/7202213576.html Thanks for your input. If I end up going this route, I will see if I can try these models out for sure. pokie fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Sep 27, 2020 |
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Sep 27, 2020 04:37
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pokie posted:Alright fuckers, I managed to browbeat my partner into letting me get an acoustic piano, and sent my duplex neighbor (who is my landlord) a note to make sure I don't get evicted for this. Awesome, so if you're willing to drop that kind of money that Yamaha would be a great choice. Odds are you won't have any trouble reselling it for about what you paid for it, as long as you keep up with the tuning and all.
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Sep 27, 2020 04:46
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Nigel Tufnel posted:Western music theory question. I’ve been enjoying a radio series where they talk about each musical key as if it were a person and how different keys have very different feels and emotions. would love to check out the source on this. guessing these key feelings are deeply subjective, i wonder if i would feel the same way about keys as your radio person Nigel Tufnel posted:While I don’t disagree, I do wonder how that is happening. If I understand correctly, the notes in the key of D major, for example, are the same as the notes in the key of C major, just one whole step up. So how is it that keys have different feels if it’s the same notes just transposed up. uh oh! this could confuse someone, because the notes in C major are different from the notes in D major! C D E F G A B D E F# G A B C# but i'm guessing this isn't what you meant. i think what you might have meant was: "The intervals between the notes in the C major scale are the same as the intervals between the notes in the D major scale." so because of that, "in theory," the keys should feel totally equivalent. but they don't! because music is filled with wonderful details that theory can sort of paper over sometimes e: Nigel Tufnel posted:Re: do certain keys have emotional attachments. Great video here from Adam Neely. oh word you figured it out already 
Helianthus Annuus fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Sep 27, 2020 |
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Sep 27, 2020 04:54
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pokie posted:Alright fuckers, I managed to browbeat my partner into letting me get an acoustic piano, and sent my duplex neighbor (who is my landlord) a note to make sure I don't get evicted for this. In terms of landlord relations in a duplex, don't place the piano against a shared wall. Try an exterior wall or if you have an isolated interior wall.
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Sep 27, 2020 05:19
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i like nice words
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Anne Whateley posted:In terms of landlord relations in a duplex, don't place the piano against a shared wall. Try an exterior wall or if you have an isolated interior wall. Also that Yamaha and a lot of uprights have a center pedal that will mute the strings for quiet practicing.
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Sep 27, 2020 05:32
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I'm having so much fun with my Yamaha p95. Stoked stoked stoked. If anyone has any free theory workbooks or anything please let me know.Helianthus Annuus posted:would love to check out the source on this. guessing these key feelings are deeply subjective, i wonder if i would feel the same way about keys as your radio person I agree to some extent but I believe somewhat that a chord like Am is going to sound sad and C major is going to sound triumphant to just about everyone. Or if you had those two chords played to someone and asked them which one sounded sad and which sounded triumphant they'd say Am and C respectively 95% of the time. I'm not sure if we've all been trained to feel this way by all the media we consume or if it is something more organic. I studied birds for a course years ago and it was super interesting how their calls had to be in tune for them to be considered healthy mates by other birds of their species. Young birds who had organic brain issues or lab-induced brain issues whereby they couldn't tonally reproduce the calls appropriately might as well have had no beaks - they were essentially ignored by other members of their species and often given unpreferential treatment by their parent(s). I guess what I meant by all this is that there is precedent for organic responses to tones. It also reminds me of color grading in movies. I'm not super well versed in this but movies are graded to invoke certain emotions in the viewer. If the grading is different there is often an extreme difference in the emotional response of the viewer to a scene. There are some youtube videos where they change color grading for some scenes and it's an insane difference in emotional tone.
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Sep 27, 2020 06:18
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Glad y'all find this CL post reasonable.Anne Whateley posted:That is a lot of piano for someone who just started. If you have the money and want to spend it, it looks great. But you would also be fine with a good free piano (just get it checked out and get a console minimum, not a spinet). Coming from other hobbies, you might think anything being given away must be poo poo. But because pianos used to be absolutely ubiquitous, and people aren't so into them anymore, there are a ton of perfectly good pianos being stripped for metal and thrown into landfills when Grandma dies. It's definitely not the cheapest, but I've been playing classical music for a long time, and am pretty sure I will stick with it. The problem with getting a free one is that I don't really know how to judge one and don't have friends who do. Something nice with tuning record etc. could be a good fit for a long time. All of this somewhat hinges on the two job offers I am expecting this coming week, so fingers crossed.
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Sep 27, 2020 06:36
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Anne Whateley posted:That is a lot of piano for someone who just started. If you have the money and want to spend it, it looks great. But you would also be fine with a good free piano (just get it checked out and get a console minimum, not a spinet). Coming from other hobbies, you might think anything being given away must be poo poo. But because pianos used to be absolutely ubiquitous, and people aren't so into them anymore, there are a ton of perfectly good pianos being stripped for metal and thrown into landfills when Grandma dies. Something to consider along this line of thinking is that Yamaha is basically the Steinway of the American upright market in terms of holding value. Barring any failures of maintenance, it's highly likely you'll be able to sell it for about what you bought it for. Whereas with a rescue piano you're going to be paying a tuner to check it out before purchase and whatever repairs it's going to need over the course of its use. Furthermore, when you decide to move/upgrade you're likely going to have to pay to get rid of because it's going to be very difficult to sell. So, as with so many other things, if you have the cash upfront the more expensive option ends up being cheaper in the long run.
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Sep 27, 2020 07:23
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I think you would have an extremely hard time dropping $3k on a free piano in two years. Just don't get a lovely broken one, but why would you when there are infinite free ones without major flaws. A tuner appraisal is normally like $100, but in the Bay Area who knows. If you don't have any experience, I think it would still be a good idea to hire someone to look at it even if you do go for a pricy one.
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Sep 27, 2020 08:55
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All I'm saying is that a piano you buy for $3k and sell for $3k two years later is a free piano.
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Sep 27, 2020 09:07
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Helianthus Annuus posted:would love to check out the source on this. guessing these key feelings are deeply subjective, i wonder if i would feel the same way about keys as your radio person Major keys: https://m.soundcloud.com/thesignatureseries/sets/the-major-keys Minor keys: https://m.soundcloud.com/thesignatureseries/sets/the-minor-keys
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Sep 27, 2020 09:23
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VelociBacon posted:I'm having so much fun with my Yamaha p95. Stoked stoked stoked. If anyone has any free theory workbooks or anything please let me know. The question isn't whether a minor chord/scale and a major/scale chord have different characteristics, it's whether different keys on modern instruments have different characteristics, in particular their perceived "sadness". Is a Gm triad sadder than an Am triad? On an equal temperament piano I think most people would be hard pressed to say one way or another. Anyway, there really isn't that much to say about it that Adam Neely's video doesn't cover. Also I'd argue that our interpretation of minor chords and scales as "sad" is basically entirely cultural. We write a lot of sad sounding music using minor keys and their progressions, and a lot of happy music using major keys and their progressions. It's baked into effectively the entire history of Western music. Does a minor 3rd sound sadder in a vacuum than a major 3rd? Play runs of major/minor 3rds chromatically on a piano and IMO that quality gets lost pretty quickly and they end up just sounding different. Like, can a person who listens to almost exclusively Western music discern the difference between a sad or happy piece of music written for... IDK, Indonesian gamelan? Or Turkish makam music? Is the music in this video happy or sad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZTfu4jWcI I sure as hell can't tell.
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Sep 28, 2020 20:06
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Nigel Tufnel posted:Major keys: https://m.soundcloud.com/thesignatureseries/sets/the-major-keys This is pretty hokey.
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Sep 28, 2020 20:08
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pokie posted:So I am at the spot where I am pretty sure I want to continue with this hobby. I am aiming to move states in a year or two, so getting an acoustic piano seems unwise. Could I get some advice on higher end keyboards? My budget is under $4k. I understand that nothing really mimics an actual acoustic instrument, but would like to come reasonably close. I'd be almost as worried about moving a $4k digital piano to a different country or overseas as a similarly priced upright IMO. My Roland HP-605 is like, 130lbs and I can't really imagine taking it overseas. I'd be real torn between selling it and buying something new vs. shipping it I think.
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Sep 28, 2020 20:17
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Klezmer and Balkan music uses a lot of harmonic minor scales and most of that is party music. Def cultural.
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Sep 28, 2020 20:18
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leftist heap posted:I'd be almost as worried about moving a $4k digital piano to a different country or overseas as a similarly priced upright IMO. My Roland HP-605 is like, 130lbs and I can't really imagine taking it overseas. I'd be real torn between selling it and buying something new vs. shipping it I think. For a digital piano, you may not be able to stick it in your car, but you can get regular house movers to do it. For an acoustic you ought to get dedicated piano movers and even then the sound can be affected by the journey. Regardless, it will need tuning after it's spent about a month in situ in the new place, and possibly voicing. Also I think the poster was moving states, not countries.
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Sep 28, 2020 20:32
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Ah poo poo I read that as moving to the states. Buy whatever then.
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Sep 28, 2020 20:47
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Do any of the learn piano apps work? I can’t quite believe the finest piano teaching aid is the Alfred adult piano book.
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Sep 28, 2020 21:05
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Nigel Tufnel posted:Do any of the learn piano apps work? It's not, the faber book is better  I haven't seen anything in an app that you can't get from looking at videos on youtube and recording yourself.
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Sep 28, 2020 21:46
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I think they're all gimmicks personally
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Sep 28, 2020 22:04
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The finest piano teaching aid is a piano teacher imo.
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Sep 28, 2020 22:39
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Major keys, minor keys, it doesn't really matter. I find that some keys inspire a sense of personal inadequacy, compassion for the pianist and rage at the composer: these are, of course, keys where the 5 black keys are all in the key signature. Speaking of digital pianos, I'm looking for a sample library; does anyone have recommendations? I'd like to start recording from my digital piano, and I figure MIDI to my PC -> sample library is the way to go. I guess I would be willing to pay up to $200 or so but obviously I'd rather pay less.
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Sep 28, 2020 23:25
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nrook posted:Major keys, minor keys, it doesn't really matter. I find that some keys inspire a sense of personal inadequacy, compassion for the pianist and rage at the composer: these are, of course, keys where the 5 black keys are all in the key signature.  fewer accidentals = worse more accidentals = better c major is the worst, b and f# major are the best nrook posted:Speaking of digital pianos, I'm looking for a sample library; does anyone have recommendations? I'd like to start recording from my digital piano, and I figure MIDI to my PC -> sample library is the way to go. I guess I would be willing to pay up to $200 or so but obviously I'd rather pay less. logic pro’s bosendorfer is *amazing*, it’s 200$, and as a bonus it’s a fully functional daw and it comes with a whole buncha other libraries too
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Sep 29, 2020 05:33
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nrook posted:Major keys, minor keys, it doesn't really matter. I find that some keys inspire a sense of personal inadequacy, compassion for the pianist and rage at the composer: these are, of course, keys where the 5 black keys are all in the key signature. Try out Pianoteq, it sounds so much better that my digital pianos internal samples that I'd almost consider a cheap computer with speakers dedicated to playing from its output.
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Sep 29, 2020 05:36
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I tried out a potential free piano my friend has. It was not great. Some keys felt like they have uneven dynamics. It sat there for like 20 years unloved and is over 40 years old at least. I messed up taking a picture of its manufacturer name, but it was Chicago something or other, a brand I could not locate online. The Yamaha upright CL dude hasn't gotten back to me in 3 days. I went to a piano store and tried a bunch of what they called "level 2" pianos: https://hailun-pianos.com/product/hu5p/ http://www.baldwinpiano.com/BP3T.html https://www.brodmannpianousa.com/professional-edition/PE-121 https://www.schimmel-pianos.de/home/instruments/fridolin/introduction.html?L=1 F123 model http://halletdavispiano.com/signature-collection/hs115m2-45/ this one was level 3 I liked the first one, the Hailun, the most. It projected a lot more sound than the others and the tone was very nice, but overall I think I could be happy with any of these. The Baldwin's plate looks sick as gently caress btw - it definitely wins on the eye candy scale.
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Sep 29, 2020 07:56
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The corollary of "look at all these free pianos" is "don't ever get one that's not great just because it's free." How much room do you have? https://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/msg/d/san-rafael-mason-hamlin-piano-model/7204203504.html
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Sep 29, 2020 13:53
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Anne Whateley posted:The corollary of "look at all these free pianos" is "don't ever get one that's not great just because it's free." It's going into my partner's office, and this baby grand could technically fit in there, but it's well outside the size we agreed on. Also, could a 90 year old piano be in a decent shape? I imagine only if they spent a lot of money on maintenance. Here's a pic of the space for reference. the area between the closet and the terrarium is about 6.5 by 6.5 feet. The plan is to put a piano against the wall with the window, where the shelf is now. Then the room shouldn't feel all that crowded. We have moved a bunch of furniture out of the way already - it's been quite cathartic.  Is buying a new one really such a bad idea? I understand that resale value drops dramatically, but having the warranty/known history is a substantial appeal. Obviously it's not as great from a financial perspective, but I can afford it.
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Sep 29, 2020 17:01
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pokie posted:
Not at all. Obviously it's brand dependent to a degree, but pianos hold their value much better than, say, cars, and they're the sort of thing you generally keep longer than a car. If you can afford it (and are comfortable with getting it moved to your new state, which is perfectly feasible, though as I alluded to previously make sure you use a dedicated piano mover) then go for it. If you do buy used, then make sure you get a tech to check it out. A bit trickier if you're getting one free, but you might be able to wangle it.
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Sep 29, 2020 17:10
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:Not at all. Obviously it's brand dependent to a degree, but pianos hold their value much better than, say, cars, and they're the sort of thing you generally keep longer than a car. If you can afford it (and are comfortable with getting it moved to your new state, which is perfectly feasible, though as I alluded to previously make sure you use a dedicated piano mover) then go for it. OK, cool. I don't want to be one of those goons who comes in for advice and just ignores all the suggestions. I bought my first car new for kinda the same reasons - relative lack of knowledge and confidence in evaluating used goods. Since then I bought and sold a bunch of used vehicles. And while I am sure the car analogy doesn't really hold, it makes sense on a basic level. I can certainly see myself holding on to, say, that Hailun for a decade or more.
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Sep 29, 2020 17:18
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In-progress pic of my Lego piano build, for anyone interested. Having a blast making this.
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Sep 29, 2020 17:19
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pokie posted:OK, cool. I don't want to be one of those goons who comes in for advice and just ignores all the suggestions. I bought my first car new for kinda the same reasons - relative lack of knowledge and confidence in evaluating used goods. Since then I bought and sold a bunch of used vehicles. And while I am sure the car analogy doesn't really hold, it makes sense on a basic level. I can certainly see myself holding on to, say, that Hailun for a decade or more. The main thing is that the piano you buy speaks to you, makes you want to sit down and play it and see how it sounds with different pieces. If it does that and is within your budget then you're golden really. A great resource for piano buying is The Piano Book - https://www.amazon.com/Piano-Book-Buying-Owning-Used/dp/1929145012/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+piano+book&qid=1601396478&sr=8-1 The first bit describes the mechanics of a piano and how it all works inside, which is fascinating. Then it has guides on buying both new and used pianos and what to look out for. Finally it has a list of different brands and a rating system to give you a sense of the quality of different brands. I'd take this bit as only a very rough guide, depending on the print date, as a few new-kids-on-the-block brands may have improved since print.
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Sep 29, 2020 17:25
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Is there a well-curated source for piano pricing? I stumbled across https://www.pianobuyer.com/ when browsing http://forum.pianoworld.com/, and their price for, say, HU5-P is x2.2 what the dealer quoted me. The dealer claimed to have a special relationship with the manufacturer, but, you know, they could say anything.
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Sep 29, 2020 18:12
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Piano Buyer is pretty much the online presence of that book I recommended; it should be a good resource. You should expect to never pay list price for a new piano, but I can't account for that level of disparity, to be honest.
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Sep 29, 2020 20:24
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:Piano Buyer is pretty much the online presence of that book I recommended; it should be a good resource. You should expect to never pay list price for a new piano, but I can't account for that level of disparity, to be honest. Interesting. Well, it sounds like a good deal then... It is putting me well over my initial budget (which was formed in complete ignorance of what pianos cost), but gently caress it - it's the piano with the sound I liked the most. I will pick it up.
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Sep 29, 2020 22:45
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So this is still very rough, but I gotta perform it in December so I guess I better start getting as much feedback as I can. Any advice is welcome, I really don't want it to go like this in front of an audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOyUdi7pYSE
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Sep 30, 2020 12:03
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