(Note: M. Steinert & Sons asked veteran piano teacher Elizabeth Reed to put pen to paper regarding the kind of piano she would recommend to the families of her students. )
by Elizabeth Reed
As a teacher, I delight in sharing my knowledge and experience with parents who are buying their first instrument or upgrading their current piano. Whether digital or acoustic, new or used, I celebrate the student’s wonder and excitement about this new instrument in their home.
When a student’s announcement of a new piano comes as a surprise, my natural enthusiasm is followed by this thought—I hope it’s a good piano. Consumers can collect a bounty of information from professional and avocational pianists’ blogs, piano makers’ websites, and musicians’ YouTube videos.
For better or for worse, most customers have made up their minds about the kind of instrument they want before they step foot in a store or contact a private seller.
But like piano playing, there are nuances behind the printed notes and the public’s comments. These are some of the musical considerations I wish parents would ask their teachers.
There is no substitute for the natural reverberation of wood, strings and airwaves that you hear and feel in person. A relevant comparison is that the simulated sound of a digital keyboard is like visiting someone on Zoom.
A family’s budget is a determining factor in choosing a digital or acoustic piano. But the future value needs to be considered. For example, recently-purchased and well-maintained acoustic pianos retain more of their value than a digital keyboard.
If students begin with a digital keyboard, I tell parents that after two years (three years maximum) students will need an acoustic piano. When it comes to the feel of the action, I use mattress buying as a comparison. The keys shouldn’t be so light that you sink to the bottom at first touch.
Finally, it will be impossible to create dynamic contrasts and finger technique will be weak. The action should be firm enough to press the key at a slow and a fast pace, as if lying down gently or jumping on a mattress.
When buying a used acoustic piano from a private seller, a piano tuner should evaluate it first. No ifs, ands, or buts. Engaging the services of a good piano tuner is akin to having a competent auto mechanic looking over a used car. You don’t want to miss any easily-discovered problems before your final purchase.
I would avoid buying a used digital keyboard because prices for new ones are reasonable.
If affordable, a new piano is always the best option, due to “less mileage” on the piano, the warranty, and the fact that quality piano models are always being refined every year.
On a digital keyboard, dynamics must be produced by playing a key with a light or heavy touch–not by turning the volume knob!
Make sure there are 88 working keys. Count them. Play. Every. Single. Key.
The damper pedal, the one on the right, is crucial. The seller should demonstrate if parents have no piano experience.
A lack of space is often a primary concern when choosing a piano. But there isn’t much of a difference between a digital and an acoustic—the depth of an acoustic is approximately ten inches deeper and the general width is the same.
I suggest that parents frame out the dimensions with paper and place it on the floor to compare the difference. A student’s bedroom, a dining room, family or living room that is free of TV, even a hallway are possible locations for a piano.
I ask parents to think about a favorite place for them to sit and read. Then I ask if they can move the piano into that spot. Hung-Kuan Chen, Steinway artist and Professor of Piano at The Juilliard School of Music, studied in Germany and had a grand piano in his dorm room—and nothing else. Mr. Chen slept underneath the piano and used the piano lid as a table and desk. Pianists can find space for a piano in any house or apartment!
All teachers have horror stories about students’ decrepit pianos and uninviting practice spaces. Even if a basement is finished, there is a psychological leeriness of having to go practice—in the basement.
My two horror stories featured unfinished basements—one with a player-piano, painted green, and the bench from a picnic table for the seat. The other was an ancient piano that was permanently a half-step flat, had missing keys, stood next to the cat litter box and shared space with exercise equipment under a sagging ceiling.
Was it a surprise both students quit after only one year? Both homes were single family houses in well-to-do suburbs.
Maintenance is an issue only for an acoustic piano, which needs to be tuned at least once a year by a professional tuner. I once had a student who couldn’t practice for three weeks because the untrained friend of a parent offered to tune the piano for free. He had removed the entire action and then couldn’t put it back together again.
They finally called a professional tuner to resolve the crisis. Again, the piano tuner is like the mechanic of a car. You want your instrument to produce a consistent hum, not clicks and clacks.
One of the most neglected aspects of piano buying and playing is the bench. Tone is all for naught if the student does not have the proper height and distance at the keyboard,with feet firmly supported on a footstool or the floor. Adjustable benches can be bought for less than the cost of one season of soccer games and equipment.
A low ottoman or a $6 plastic footstool from Ikea work just as well. I have footstools that I loan out whenever possible.
If your acoustic piano is not being delivered from a store, Do Not Move A Piano Yourself or With Friends. Hire a professional piano mover and buy the insurance.
My first grand piano was craned into a third-floor apartment through the balcony (and down again) to a second-floor apartment along a narrow path and through the back porch. As I paced my apartment, I was comforted in knowing my piano was insured in case of a calamity.
My mother was a piano teacher and I have witnessed many a nerve-racking move, from the grand piano whose lid had to be taken off because of the limited height on a staircase, to the men who lost control of our old upright piano on our steep back stairs.
The piano barreled down the stairs with the bottom man holding on for dear life, when by sheer coincidence my father opened the back door, saw the impending disaster and braced both the man and the piano, preventing a crash through our cellar door and down another steep flight, this time cement stairs.
Teachers want their students to love music and to delight in the sounds of a piano. There are instruments with good sound at every price point. Do your internet research. Stay open to different options. And next time you’re looking for a piano, ask your teacher for advice!
M. Steinert & Sons thanks Ms. Reed for her frontline insights. For more information, learn more about the piano offerings at M. Steinert & Sons.
by By Elizabeth Ann Reed, January 8, 2021, Courtesy of the Boston Globe
(Ed Note: We are honored to be able to reprint this wonderful article that appeared in the Boston Globe in January 2021 highlighting the timeless role of the piano in the home, especially during challenging times.)
Piano teachers like me travel back in time to the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries every day to teach Bach’s preludes and fugues, to reenact Mozart’s operatic piano sonatas, and to regenerate Chopin’s passionate nocturnes. Just a piano and a score are needed to transport us to living rooms, previously known as front rooms, receiving rooms, drawing rooms, sitting rooms, parlors, and salons, where these musical masterpieces often premiered.
In past centuries, this room served as the center of family life. It was for formally receiving visitors, for playing games, making music, writing letters, and reading books. There, playwrights presented dramas, authors and poets read their works aloud, composers and musicians performed — all steadfast traditions. Until the early 1900s, it was also a mournful place: viewings and wakes were commonly held there for deceased relatives. When “living room” originated is unclear; the term can be found in Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr.’s 1897 groundbreaking book, The Decoration of Houses. But it’s the Ladies’ Home Journal that’s often credited with popularizing the term in a 1910 article.
Then in the 1950s building boom, the addition of a family room with its comfy sofas drew the family in to do homework, watch TV, or listen to music on stereos. Basements became rec rooms with pool or table tennis. The living room was again reserved for formal visits, the finer furniture upholstered in aqua tones and smothered in plastic.
In homes without a finished basement or family room, the 20th-century living room remained a center of home entertainment, but the plays, book sharing, and music making often gave way to the ultimate entertainer — the TV. Students’ pianos drifted to sunrooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, even closet spaces.
Now, technology rules every room. Reading aloud occurs in the car with audiobooks, or as a solo activity with a smartphone and headphones. Authors and poets read new works at bookstores. Live music is mobile through hand-held devices. And the living room?
That depends. It’s the default room for larger gatherings, and now, during the pandemic, as office space for children and adults. It’s still the most popular place for students’ pianos and digital keyboards, though some of my students have theirs in their own place of refuge, their bedrooms.
Even though I’ve been a crusader of using computer programs and iPad apps for teaching, my living room remains my refuge, where I teach my students, practice on my grand piano, and play chamber music with my daughter on violin and my son on cello.
But like everyone else’s home spaces, the pandemic forced immediate rethinking. When the COVID-19 pandemic first crescendoed last March, quarantine requirements pushed my colleagues and me into online teaching over seven hectic days. We drew on qualities required for our profession: creativity, fortitude, and patience.
The first week I bounced between FaceTime, Skype, and Zoom. Connections were spotty, sound was distorted, screens froze for minutes that felt like hours. By week 11, I had four devices connected — for Zoom hosting, mirroring a closeup of the keys, viewing online scores, and projecting the games I play with students.
Although I’ve been able to troubleshoot Internet and sound issues, the result is far from ideal. Technology hasn’t yet replaced the deep resonance that the wood and strings of a piano create.
But being forced to teach online altered my perspective. Instead of students entering my living room to play my piano, I was beamed into their living rooms, hearing them play on their instruments. Not once did I hear the perennial student excuse, “It sounded better at home!” I met their pets. I could assess if the bench was too high, too low, too close or too far from the keyboard. I heard the background noises my students have to compete with.
But most striking from this new vantage point was seeing that the living room has once again become the center of live performance.
For a piano teacher and students, the culminating event of the year is the annual recital, often held in a church or library. My late mother was also a piano teacher and an accomplished player, and I’m fortunate to have her piano studio available for performances — an open space with a cathedral ceiling and skylights, two Steinway grand pianos and seating for 60. Not this year.
I could have hosted a Zoom meeting of live performances, but I wanted better sound quality and no panic-inducing technical glitches. My students pre-recorded their performances from their living rooms or wherever their pianos or keyboards were.
My daughter produced a video to be shown on the recital evening. I recorded my welcoming and closing speeches, and high school senior tribute, all from my living room, and compiled photos of current students taken over the years for a slide show.
Did every student dress up? Was there an annual group picture? Did students race to the refreshments table to stack their plates with chocolate eclairs, mini cupcakes, and frosted brownies? You know the answer.
Then what did we have? We had a recital showcasing young musicians’ accomplishments, shared with family and friends, who followed along on printed programs and snacked on cookies I delivered ahead of time.
We’ve reclaimed our living rooms and other places of refuge to share life’s meaningful moments. During the pandemic, that’s more important than it might seem. In the end, we created the same environment of presenting music from hundreds of years ago — a wonderful, intimate evening of piano performances in our homes. W
With the aid of modern technology, we’ve gone back 300 years.
M. Steinert & Sons is honored to reproduce this work from Elizabeth Reed with her permission.
Ms. Ranko Konishi-Houston of Cambridge is Elected to Steinway Piano Teacher Hall of Fame
Boston, MA (December 3, 2019): Ranko Konishi-Houston, a Cambridge piano teacher, has been inducted into the national Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame, a prestigious designation recognizing the work of North America’s most committed and passionate piano educators. Ms. Konishi-Houston was nominated for the honor by M. Steinert & Sons, the nation’s oldest music retailer and the region’s only authorized representative for Steinway pianos.
Ranko Konishi-Houston is the owner of RKH Piano Studio and is the immediate past-president of the New England Piano Teachers’ Association (NEPTA). She is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, where she earned both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in piano performance. Ms. Konishi-Houston is an active member of various music organizations in the Greater Boston area including the Massachusetts Music Teachers Association (MMTA). She is a recipient of Steinway & Sons Top Teacher Awards in 2017 and 2018, and is a Steinway Teacher and Educational Partner.
Forty-three teachers from the United States and Canada were inducted into the Steinway Teachers Hall of Fame with special events hosted at the historic Steinway factory in New York City. The teachers’ names are now displayed on a commemorative display wall inside the iconic factory.
“M. Steinert & Son is proud to work with some of the finest piano teachers in the world,” said Brendan Murphy, Vice President and director of Institutional Sales at M. Steinert & Sons, whose family has owned the company for four generations. “We are so pleased that Ranko Konishi-Houston has been recognized for her important contributions to music education.”
About M. Steinert & Sons
Founded in 1860 by Morris Steinert, a German immigrant, M. Steinert & Sons is the country’s oldest continuously operating music retailer, and the exclusive regional dealer for world-renowned Steinway & Sons pianos, Boston pianos, Essex pianos, and Roland digital electronic pianos. The company has showrooms in Boston and Natick, MA.
