To most piano buyers and owners, a piano's tone is probably its most important aspect, but also the most difficult to quantify or describe. Likewise, the shaping of the tone by the technician through the procedure known as voicing involves unfamiliar terminology, and techniques that are difficult for technicians to communicate to the customer. The purpose of this article, then, is to provide information about tone, voicing, and definitions of some commonly used terms so that piano owners and technicians can better communicate with each other, and piano shoppers can make more informed buying decisions.
Read moreSELECTING A PERFORMANCE PIANO FOR CONCERT HALL OR HOME
The selection of a concert grand usually falls to piano faculty at a university, the music director at a church, or pianists hired to choose an instrument for an orchestra. Occasionally these pianos are selected for homes. This article assumes that you have chosen a brand and model, and are now about to select a specific instrument from among several examples. Professional pianists are most qualified to make these selections because they generally have played a large variety of pianos, and the differences among the pianos in the selection group may be so subtle as to go unnoticed by the average person. In most cases, these high-quality finalists sound so good that it is very difficult to choose one as better than the rest. This article attempts to define and shorten the selection process.
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