Click here to view the piano

I had the pleasure of tuning and recording this piano over the last two days. I have also been using it as a practice piano for 2-3 hours daily when I do my early morning practices. The piano in question is a beautiful Bechstein grand piano in ebony black.

My experience of it here, I have attached (above) a free improvisation that I recorded on this piano today.

Tone & Touch:

Most of our clients don't have a very large budget to spend on a piano but you don't need to have a huge budget to get a top quality piano. £1,500 - £2,500 would put many top quality British and several older Japanese Yamaha U1 pianos within your budget and £3,500 achieves U1's bigger sibling; the Yamaha U3 upright made in Japan. We have rented U1D (£2,700) pianos for proffesional concerts, weddings and other events.

Keyboards

It's worth talking about keyboards as I'm sure there are lots of people considering whether a keyboard might be best. My analysis is based on the assumption that you have the space and that disturbing the neighbourghs is no issue.

Keyboards are limited from the offset in relation to pianos, they are a multilayer recording of a piano. The quality of these recordings is limited by the memory assaigned in the construction proccess. Although keyboards can be cheaper than grand pianos, you need to spend about £3,000, the same price as some top quality british uprights, including accesories to resemble an acoustic piano, and the pedal slides away from you whilst your playing!

So if you are after the best acoustic sound, keyboards aren't worth your concern.

British/Scandinavian Pianos

The rise of Asian pianos

Introduction:

In the following blog I will look at why the piano industry is moving to Asia and give a brief overview of the bottom, middle and top range Asian pianos available up to the present time.
The main countries of piano manufacture in Asia are: China, Korea and Japan. Yamaha were the first to make pianos in Asia (subsequently, their logo consists of three super imposed tuning forks). Yamaha is one among an increasing number of Asian manufacturers. There are different ranges of pianos being made in Asia and the quality can vary greatly. Here is a brief description of these ranges:

Mid-Top range Asian pianos
Japanese pianos are made to very similar standards of craftsmanship as their European counterparts. They make pianos of exceptionally high quality have come from namely Yamaha (such as the CFIII handcrafted, or the more accessible U series uprights) and Kawai (e.g. KG3 series) alike.

Amongst the top quality handcrafted models, Yamaha also provide mid-top range uprights such as the U series (see our webpage) which is a favourite of many private teachers, schools and conservatoires. The top handcrafted models of Yamaha are comparable to European makes such as Steinway and Bosendorfer with the same focus on quality.

Good enough - clean, fairly cheap but nothing special:

As we have recently received more Yamaha pianos in stock it's a good idea to touch on the subject of Yamaha pianos in general and here is the first of a series of articles relating to Yamaha. This article discusses Yamaha's tier system and the how you should be aware of this before buying a piano.