I love sitting at my Steinway piano - no knobs, no buttons, no latency - and no music unless I make it...

[Sal Sorice]

I'm noticing how much less I play my piano, study, compose, etc. lately.

All the distractions - plugin chasing, DAW optimizing, tweaking, patching, watching tutorials (which is sometimes good if you find the right ones in the haystack), etc.

I'm tempted to just step away from it for a while, sit at my Steinway and play/compose, try and write songs (with a pencil and paper oh my!), study music theory again (maybe the Bach Chorales?), modes, chord structure, etc.

It would probably make me a better musician - and a more sane person...

Anyone else feel this way?

Edited November 15 by Sal Sorice
typo

[mettelus]

I personally find sitting in front of a computer the antithesis of playing music, especially with guitar where I prefer to stand (and look at anything other than a computer screen). Several years ago I got a wireless transceiver so I could walk freely around the house or even outside to play, and my only major "FX" purchase in the last few years has been for hardware (HELIX Floor), which I typically only connect to modify programs. I have very little interest in updates (unless substantial) or a DAW becoming a "cheesy video game." Time is the most precious commodity and the one you will never recover, so sitting on my butt doing (relatively) nothing is way low on my priority list. A real instrument is something you can just grab or sit down with, tune if needed, and use... there is a lot of freedom in that, especially when you just want to play.

[user 905133]

DEAL:   A nearby college that closed up shop a few months ago has a whole bunch of Steinways for sale.

Quote

The college’s closure signals a sweeping transition. Among the assets slated for sale are an array of musical instruments, including a collection of Steinway pianos that held a special place at St. Rose. Dr. Young Kim, a former piano professor at the college, personally selected many of these pianos, envisioning a Steinway-only program to support students’ musical development.

“It’s heartbreaking for me and many people,” Dr. Kim shared. “But I wish those pianos can find a nice home.” The most meaningful to her is the concert grand Steinway, which was housed in the college’s recital hall. “I played so many concerts on that piano,” Kim reflected. Her attachment goes beyond mere function—it’s a connection to years of performances and memories.

A Steinway artist, Dr. Kim dedicated her work to the Steinway brand, bringing a high standard of musical excellence to St. Rose. “Our goal was to become all Steinway,” she noted. Some of the pianos, now priced around $70,000, are still relatively young in terms of their lifespan and musical potential. Steinways are known to last between 80 to 100 years, yet the college’s pianos are only between 10 to 20 years old, making their sale a unique opportunity.

Paul Jennings, from Artist Pianos, is coordinating the sale of the instruments and acknowledged the exceptional pricing. “A new Steinway can cost around $140,000. So these late-model pianos, priced at $70,000, are young in Steinway terms and offered at liquidation prices.”

 

[Sal Sorice]

1 hour ago, user 905133 said:

DEAL:   A nearby college that closed up shop a few months ago has a whole bunch of Steinways for sale.

 

Any pianists should definitely check it out if they are in the market. There might be some gems for sale at good prices.

I got my 1998 Steinway Model B through my great piano teacher. He knew the Steinway Reps in NJ and they let him know that they were cycling out their Steinways from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) - I think they did that every 7 years or so - this was in 2005. They only put their best Steinways in venues like that, so he told me it was worth checking out.

I had been traipsing all over NJ and NY looking for a grand piano - dragging my wonderful wife with me. Played some great pianos.

But as soon as I sat down at that Model B I was sold. My teacher and I went to the Victoria Theater at NJPAC (where the piano lived). I listened to him play through some amazing stuff by Chopin, Beethoven, etc. I then sheepishly and nervously played some pieces (hey - I can plausibly say I played at NJPAC!).

Did the paperwork that day - and have enjoyed that piano ever since.

[Amberwolf]

The computer can be frustrating; one thing I do to minimize that is never add anything new to it or mess with it's settings, so it always works the same.

But still I sometimes just sit and play at this old '70s Kimball (shown here just after I hauled it home after picking it up free from TrashNothing some years back).  It wasn't tuned well even before I got it, and the trip didn't help, so I've done a basic tuning (which took months, including learning how), and so now it just has "character".   

[Gswitz]

No headphones. 

[paulo]

7 hours ago, Gswitz said:

No headphones. 

Yep.... the OP obviously never grew up in a household where someone was learning to "play" a violin.

[Sal Sorice]

3 hours ago, paulo said:

Yep.... the OP obviously never grew up in a household where someone was learning to "play" a violin.

I took trumpet for a few years as a kid. Bless my parents. They were really happy when I switched to piano…

[Notes_Norton]

I feel that way about my saxophone and my guitar.

When playing the wind synthesizer, or keyboard synth, I use hardware sound modules. Why? No noticeable latency is one major reason.  There are others.

[pwallie]

4 hours ago, paulo said:

Yep.... the OP obviously never grew up in a household where someone was learning to "play" a violin.

my sister in law learned to "play" a violin, no headphones anywhere 😬

[kennywtelejazz]

I started playing guitar around 1966 and much later on I got my first computer in 2005 ...

sheesh you think I would know what I'm doing by now .

After almost 20 years of playing pocket pool with my computer and all it's associated musical bloat gear . I have come to the conclusion that I was happier  & I got more enjoyment  out of playing  my guitar when I decided to go with a less is more approach .

Now , I keep it real simple......I'm a new man & I have learned my lesson the hard way .

My  Muse is real fickle . When she gets a whiff of a new plug , an updated  D A W with a new learning curve or guitar tracks I just recorded with  take numbers above two or three  She knows it only a matter of time before my project has triple digit recorded take numbers ...

She don't want to stick around and play second fiddle .....She's gone ...She will do  her version of a Hasta la vista Tele Gump disappearing act leaving my musical session at triple digit no speed limit  Autobahn  speeds .

On the other side of the coin , when I'm centered and not distracted by all the unimportant stuff I seem to waste my time  focusing  on , My Muse  likes it best when I serenade her with a simple arrangement of a tune on a stripped down guitar like this new one I just got .

She Likes to hear the truth in my playing . She knows a good thing when she hears it 😉

To this day I still get most of my Musical enjoyment out of keeping it real simple while playing my guitar with absolutely no forced technological distractions . The truth be told all I really  need is a guitar , a guitar pick  or my fingers  , a strap , a cable to plug my guitar into an amp , + a neck mounted guitar tuner .

When I want to  learn how to play over something  new and learn it I will add a music stand with a lead sheet / song chart .

all the best ,

Kenny

Edited Sunday at 03:52 AM by kennywtelejazz

[bitflipper]

On 11/15/2024 at 3:29 PM, Amberwolf said:

The computer can be frustrating; one thing I do to minimize that is never add anything new to it or mess with it's settings, so it always works the same.

But still I sometimes just sit and play at this old '70s Kimball (shown here just after I hauled it home after picking it up free from TrashNothing some years back).  It wasn't tuned well even before I got it, and the trip didn't help, so I've done a basic tuning (which took months, including learning how), and so now it just has "character".   

This appears to be the exact same model I grew up with!

Oh, how I abused that thing.  When I was 19 I decided to turn it into a tack piano, painstakingly inserting brass tacks into each hammer. Then I attached large paper clips to the felt bar that comes down between the hammer and strings when you press the "soft" pedal. My idea was that I could switch between normal and tack via the pedal. That didn't work well, and the soft pedal never sounded right afterward. Coincidentally, my mother stopped playing piano around that time (it was her piano). My 19-year-old brain could not comprehend that it might be because I'd destroyed her instrument.

And I can relate to learning to tune a piano - I thought it would be easy: just tune it like a guitar, going around the circle of fifths. Um, nope.  By the time you come back around it's out of tune. I also learned that every time you move a piano you have to retune it. Because the piano was lightweight (relatively speaking) and could be moved by just two people, I had the idea of dragging it on stage. This was in the early 70's; there was no credible electronic equivalent to an acoustic piano back then. Well, I figured out why the only bands that used real pianos on stage were the ones wealthy enough to afford having them professionally moved and tuned for each performance. Having a portable "real" piano would be my holy grail for 30 years, when I got my Yamaha MO8.

Totally agree with the premise of this thread. Sitting down at my piano is like a writer sitting at a typewriter with a blank sheet of paper. No inspiration from some cool-sounding sample library or synth, it's about creating something from scratch every time.

[Amberwolf]

4 hours ago, bitflipper said:

Oh, how I abused that thing.  When I was 19 I decided to turn it into a tack piano, painstakingly inserting brass tacks into each hammer. Then I attached large paper clips to the felt bar that comes down between the hammer and strings when you press the "soft" pedal. My idea was that I could switch between normal and tack via the pedal. That didn't work well, and the soft pedal never sounded right afterward. Coincidentally, my mother stopped playing piano around that time (it was her piano). My 19-year-old brain could not comprehend that it might be because I'd destroyed her instrument.

The only mod I've considered is to install a pair of switches on each key (probably on the hammer-drive mechanics as they're easier to access) and run them to a module (arduino, etc, or even the guts of an old midi keyboard) in place of the keyboard.  (pairs of switches are used to get the timing between them, which is used to calculate the velocity)

Then I can get MIDI out from it and record what I play (preferably to an always-recording buffer inside the device so I don't have to deal with anything other than turning it on), and then edit out my many mistakes and use a synth piano to export a file I can upload a listenable version to my bandcamp page.

 

 Something like the Moog/Buchla Pianobar, but DIY and affordable   ( https://www.midiboutique.com/ carries DIY parts to do much of this kind of thing, but is far too expensive for me). 

[Starship Krupa]

I still have the made in Jasper, IN Whitney by Kimball baby grand I picked up on Craig's List for the cost of moving it.

I've been trying to give it away for quite some time now because I'm planning on moving in the next year or so.

Nobody on Craig's List or Freecycle wants a free baby grand piano and I refuse to send it to the dump. I can do a lot of things, but I can't send a piano to the dump. It's in the classic state of "in great shape, just needs to be tuned."

BTW, mechanical pianos do of course have "latency," we just compensate for it. I mean, unless sound comes out of yours the instant your finger touches a key....

The time between when you first start pressing the key and when the hammer strikes the string is latency. It's just that humans are so good at compensating for that sort of thing. Same with kick drum pedals.

Really, the time between when your brain tells your hand or foot to move and the time you hear the sound always has to be compensated for, whatever the instrument. But somehow, after a couple of tries, the brain starts getting it right, even when controlling 4 limbs plus voice. Amazing, really.

Start a metronome and your nervous system has to relay the sound of it to your brain, which then has to tell your hand what to do to produce a sound on your instrument, with your hand starting a good way away from the instrument itself. I start most drum strokes at least 12" from the drum head, yet I can land them right on the beat, doing rolls across the toms and hitting every one in time (or close enough that it sounds like it). All the calculation needed to do a roll across the toms and then a cymbal crash, all in divisions of a second, landing really close to the division. A 16th note hi hat pattern at 120 BPM happens at what, 1/8 of a second intervals? 125mS? Excuse my math being off. But whatever it is, a drummer can do that and also throw in snare hits with the right hand and kick pedal with the right foot and maybe some hi hat pedal accenting with the left foot. Yikes.

All because we can predict the future, at least to that degree.😄

Latency to us usually means "a lag between the time a key on my controller hits bottom and the time I hear a sound made by my synth," but there's a lot that happens before that.

[T Boog]

I can relate. Although I dont have a real piano, I write songs on my Korg pa500 or even my cheap Yamaha keyboard rather than using my pc because they have built in speakers. Just hit the "ON" button and youre making music and the sound is coming from the keyboard itself which feels more intimate and real.

I always record using midi but for writing, I find there's somewhat of an emotional disconnect going thru the computer(no matter how good the vst). It just feels more cumbersome and distant. For writing, quick & easy is usually the way to go.

[kitekrazy1]

On 11/16/2024 at 6:33 AM, Sal Sorice said:

I took trumpet for a few years as a kid. Bless my parents. They were really happy when I switched to piano…

I have Yamaha practice mutes for trumpet and trombone.

I refer to them as silencers when I kill music.

[57Gregy]

Nothing like a real piano.
 

[Amberwolf]

16 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I still have the made in Jasper, IN Whitney by Kimball baby grand I picked up on Craig's List for the cost of moving it.

I've been trying to give it away for quite some time now because I'm planning on moving in the next year or so.

Nobody on Craig's List or Freecycle wants a free baby grand piano and I refuse to send it to the dump. I can do a lot of things, but I can't send a piano to the dump. It's in the classic state of "in great shape, just needs to be tuned."

If you haven't already, you could try putting it up on ebay, etc, for the lowest price it will allow, for "local pickup only" if you don't want to go thru shipping it (which I expect would be an expensive nightmare).   

Outside of that, your local goodwill/etc might be able to come pick it up.  I see pianos of all sorts and in some awful conditions at my local gw's now and then.   (some of them were over a century old, but unfortunately looked and sounded like it)

[craigb]

5 hours ago, 57Gregy said:

Nothing like a real piano.
 

Except a real piano. 😜

[craigb]

Oh, and I would check schools and churches to get rid of that baby grand! 😉