27 December 2016 The Most Common Piano Questions We Answer

The Most Common Piano Questions We Answer

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I haven’t tuned my piano in years. Can it be tuned now?
In many cases, the answer is yes. But in some cases, pianos that have had years of neglect may need additional tuning – pitch raising – to achieve standard concert pitch. A standard concert pitch ensures that one instrument can play along with another and play in tune. In some cases, if a piano hasn’t been tuned in many years, it may take more than one tuning session to bring the piano back into tune. Adding too much tension at one time can cause the strings to snap. Structural problems may also be identified that can make tuning difficult at best.The Most Common Piano Questions We Answer

When and how often should I tune my piano?
Here in Tennessee, we have a wide variety of weather conditions throughout the year. From cold to hot, with high levels of humidity throughout the year, tuning at least twice a year is usually the best practice. If your piano is brand new, has recently been moved, or has tuning stability problems, more frequent tuning schedule might be needed. The truth is that a piano begins going out of tune from the moment the tuner leaves your home. With rigorous playing, a concert pianist can throw a piano out of tune in one sitting. While the time of year isn’t as important as developing a routine, the change of seasons is often a good time structure to stick with, especially at the end of a particularly brutal season.

I just inherited an old piano. Is it worth fixing up?
To begin, you have to define what it will take to fix up your piano. Was it well taken care of? Was it sitting in a cold, dark, damp basement for the last thirty years? Most pianos can be restored to working condition, and fully restored if it’s of the highest quality workmanship or a beloved family heirloom. Tuning is the best place to start. A reputable tuner will tell you where improvements should be made to bring your piano back into good working condition.

My keys don’t work the way they should. They seem sticky. Some are cracked and chipped, and they don’t seem to play right.
If a key makes a tone when played, the problem is usually minor. If it produces a sound, the parts are in place, they may just need modification to bring them into tune. If it doesn’t make a sound, the problem could be deeper. If you can pinpoint the problem by lifting the lid and peering inside, it can help the tuner understand the problem before he arrives. If keys are chipped, the tops can be replaced. Depending on the age of your piano, it may be made of ivory, in which case replacement of the entire keyboard may be necessary. Ivory can no longer be used, and key tops will be replaced with modern key top material.

What questions do you have about your piano?

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23 December 2016 Playing The Piano: Moving Beyond Bad Habits

Playing The Piano: Moving Beyond Bad Habits

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What stops a lot of people from continuing with the piano? Bad habits.

Bad habits can make creating music a difficult task. And when the joy begins to fade, piano playing follows suit.Playing The Piano: Moving Beyond Bad Habits

From early on in a beginning piano players routine, stuttering can be a problem. Stuttering is caused by stop and go practice in which a student stops playing when they reach a section they don’t play well, replaying it again and again when there is a mistake. If you make a mistake, always continue through to the end. Don’t stop and correct it. Instead, make a mental note of where the mistake was, and when you are through, go back and work on the troubled section. Stopping in the middle cuts out the rhythm of the tune. It stops your focus and concentration, putting it on the mistake rather than on the melody. It puts too much emphasis on the problem rather than the joy of the music.

Poor tone quality is another common problem. During practice, no one is listening so tone doesn’t matter. Tone can quickly degrade without having to correct it for those around them. And if they ignore it in practice, it’s more difficult to correct down the road. Good tone cannot be produced by a poor or untuned piano; the first step is to have a high quality piano in which to practice on. If they learn to practice with high quality sound, they will quickly recognize when a piano performance isn’t up to par. It’s also important to record proper piano tone from time to time, so that the player can get a good feel for problem areas, sound quality, and the difference between the two.

Still another bad habit is playing at the wrong speed. Music is created with a certain tempo in mind. The right speed is determined by many factors, including the difficulty of the piece, the condition of the piano, technical ability, what the audience is expecting, etc. If a person tries to play a piece that is too difficult for their ability, they may end up with many mistakes, or be timid and play it too slow for enjoyment. Perform a piece too quickly and it removes the performance factor of the music. The key is in practicing to perfection, and understanding your connection to the music. If you learn to think of presentation first, you’ll have a better performance overall.

The worst thing about bad playing habits is the time they take for correction. Nothing accelerates your learning curve more than developing good habits over bad. If you give yourself every advantage from the beginning, you’re more likely to enjoy the process every step of the way. Get the best equipment, ask for help, and have fun making music.

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19 December 2016 Proper Humidity For Your Piano

Proper Humidity For Your Piano

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Regular maintenance is a part of owning a piano. And part of maintaining a well functioning piano is providing the right level of humidity in your home. Nothing keeps your piano healthier than the proper humidity level. This can be achieved in any room in your home by adding a piano humidifier to your instrument.Proper Humidity For Your Piano

Ideally, your piano’s humidity level should be at about 50 percent. Pushing it between 50 to 55 percent would be even better. And if a thunderstorm raises it to 65, 70 percent or more, no need to worry. Excess humidity may cause tuning problems, but it won’t damage the structure of your piano. Don’t let humidity fall much below the 50 percent level. Too little humidity is far more harmful than too much. Anything below 40 percent is cause to worry, since extremely dry air could cause the soundboard to crack.

To determine your humidity level, consider purchasing a hygrometer and leave it directly on the piano. This tiny device can be found online or in hardware stores and will tell you the details of the air around you.

In order to have proper humidity for your piano, you have two options: external or internal.

An external solution is the easiest and least expensive. Invest in an ordinary room humidifier, and in most cases will only need to turn it on in the winter when your home dries out with continual use of a heater. It’s important to keep your piano away from the humidifier and from vents that blow out warm air. It should never be directly in line with conditioned air; instead it should be a couple of feet or more from direct streams.

An internal solution includes a dedicated humidifier built directly into your piano. There are companies that manufacture piano humidifiers and can be installed by a piano technician. If a room humidifier hasn’t solved your air issues, this may be the best way to go to further regulate your piano’s condition.

If you haven’t regulated humidity levels before, start simple with a hygrometer and room humidifier and monitor your humidity levels for awhile. In most cases, this will be sufficient for your home. A piano cannot be brought back to life once it’s too far gone. The best way to maintain it is to start the process from the beginning.

Have more questions about your piano?

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17 December 2016 Need A Gift? How About A Piano App

Need A Gift? How About A Piano App

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There’s a new way of learning to play the piano. It isn’t with flash cards or manual metronomes or hand clapping to learn notes and rhythms. Instead, you can learn all that and more through an app.

Kids of all ages are using their smart devices for many different things. An iPad or tablet is no longer optional, in many cases, they are used for everything in our daily lives. From reading the news, to finding a recipe for dinner, to planning your next vacation, most of us can’t imagine not having smart technology easily within reach.Need A Gift? How About A Piano App

So it comes as no surprise that piano apps are also growing in popularity. Piano apps held do everything from learning music in a fun way, to understanding complex music theory, to helping you write and compose your own melody. All of which can not only make you a better piano player, but can also help you love music that much more.

What apps should you consider?

Melody Cats

These fun apps help kids and adults learn how to read notes and rhythm. They have three apps available: Treble Cat and Bass Cat that are designed to help you identify notes in the treble and bass clefs, and Rhythm Cat which is designed to help you read the most commonly used rhythms.

Midi Sheet Music

This app gives you the ability to see your music in an entirely new way. It allows you to display your sheet music from MIDI music files. You can print it or save it as PNG or PDF files. Display the note letters next to each note, or display them in different colors to be more effective in learning how to play. This app will have you playing better in no time.

JoyTunes

JoyTunes has created three apps that allow learners to enjoy the learning process more while keeping teachers informed of progress. Piano Dust Buster is a great starting point for kids just starting to learn. Piano Maestro provides an in depth educational tool to further your music education. Simply Piano helps learn the basics, from sight reading to playing with both hands.

What piano apps have you found useful?

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12 December 2016 Arranging Your Living Room Around A Grand Piano

Arranging Your Living Room Around A Grand Piano

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A grand piano doesn’t just sit idly by in your room. It makes the room.

When people make an investment in a grand piano, it’s likely to be one of the most expensive pieces of furniture in the room. It isn’t something you want to squeeze into a corner; you want to put it on display. But arranging the rest of the living room furniture around the piano may seem like a daunting task. It’s not something you can easily move from place to place. There’s a better way instead.Arranging Your Living Room Around A Grand Piano

Create A Floor Plan
Before you ever touch a piece of furniture, draw it to scale first. With a piece of graph paper, draw your room to scale, including doorways and windows. Then start experimenting with various layouts without having to move a single piece. You can create scale outlines of all furniture you wish to remain in the room, cut them out and play with the layout. Ensure all doors can open without blocking them. Also be aware of vents to ensure you don’t place the piano too near a stream of air.

The Piano
If you don’t have your piano yet, experiment with different sizes and the best location. From the front to the back, a baby grand piano measures 5 feet or under, a boudoir grand piano measures 5 to 7 feet, and a concert grand is around 9 feet. Make sure whatever size you choose has plenty of room to move around it, as it will likely be the centerpiece of the room. A smaller grand with plenty of space will look more impressive than one that is crowded into the room.

Location
While a piano may look attractive against a window, never expose a piano to direct sunlight. This will cause fading and can affect the value. Also, avoid placing it too close to outside walls as this may expose the piano to varying temperature changes. Never place it too close to any heat source as the flow of air can dry out your piano.

The grand piano has a hinged lid that opens to one side to let the sound out. The open side of the lid should face the seating area, or at least into the center of the room. Never place seating on the other side as this will impact sound quality. If the room is large, consider creating a dedicated seating area exclusively for the piano.

What grand piano is the right size for your home?

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9 December 2016 Piano Tuning and the Tempered Scale

Piano Tuning and the Tempered Scale

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Tuning a piano is an art form that takes time. If you’ve ever watched a piano tuner in action, you may have wondered why they start in the middle of the keyboard.

The initial task of a piano tuner is to set the temperament. This involves tuning the middle section of the keyboard to an equal tuned temperament. Once this is done, the rest of the strings can be set by tuning octave intervals up and down the keyboard.Piano Tuning and the Tempered Scale

As the tuning progresses, tuning is adjusted between notes over a two octave range, starting with a single C tuning fork. You don’t have to have a perfect sense of pitch for this to occur. There are systematic methods of setting the temperament, which depend on setting intervals to natural harmonics. From there, you adjust them sharp or flat by listening to and adjusting for the specific beat rate.

Beat rates can be adjusted to the speed of a metronome and can be measured quite accurately. When a tuner is armed with a good sense of timing and an ear that knows what to listen for, he can very accurately set the temperament from a single pitch reference.

When a highly skilled tuner finishes adjusting the piano, something interesting happens. The middle of the piano will be close to perfect. But somewhere above the second octave, the notes will gradually become more sharp, while below the octave will be some flattening of the notes. The effect is known as the stretching of the upper and lower octaves. It is because a string won’t always vibrate at perfect natural harmonics. A vibrating string tends to be sharp of the natural harmonic series and becomes more pronounced as the string is made shorter or thicker.

When the tuner is tuning octave intervals up the keyboard, they tune for the best sound, compromising between the string fundamentals. A piano tuned with the upper and lower octaves stretched simply sounds better. The shape and degree of the stretching depends on the instrument in question. Pianos with longer bass strings require less stretch in the lower end.

There are algorithms and software available which will calculate a temperament for a given piano based on inharmonicity measurements. There are also tuners that can do this properly by ear.

The goal of musical instrument adjustment and tuning is to produce an instrument that sounds good. A great sounding instrument will be one that gets more play time. And that’s truly what matters most.

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5 December 2016 How Digital Pianos Have Changed

How Digital Pianos Have Changed

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It’s the event of a lifetime. It’s just the singer and piano player up on stage in front of thousands of people. Then something happens. The microphone inside the piano fall and begin vibrating on the strings.

For many performers, nothing compares to an acoustic piano. They love the sound. But when you’re performing in front of thousands, clarity and amplification are necessary.How Digital Pianos Have Changed

When digital pianos were first introduced in the 1980s, they offered solutions to all of the things that could potentially go wrong in a performance. With digital, there is no tuning before a show, no mics to connect and hook up, no risk of mics falling on the strings. But until recently, digital also meant sounding … electronic.

Acoustic pianos have a large soundboard that measures several feet in diameter. Their keys are weighted and provide a proper feel.

Digital pianos, however, had nothing more than a couple of speakers no more than six inches in diameter. The keys didn’t have the bounce or feel we’ve come to accept through years of practice.

And if it doesn’t feel or sound right, we can’t use it in the best of circumstances. Like performances in front of thousands of listeners.

But digital pianos have gotten better. They’ve taken a hybrid approach to offer the best of both worlds – the rich smell of wood and the feel of traditional spring steel piano strings – with the power of technology.

Today’s digital pianos come in simplest form – a digital version of an acoustic piano – up to one of the most sophisticated instruments that offer everything you could want from technology. You can get all the sound a traditional acoustic piano can produce, but with digital components that can give it an even better sound.

Is a digital piano in your future?

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29 November 2016 The 5 Most Popular Piano Styles

The 5 Most Popular Piano Styles

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Let’s face it, we don’t all like the same kinds of music in the world today. And with so many different varieties available, why limit yourself to one or two genres?

Unfortunately, many piano teachers approach learning in this manner. They start with the basics and push for the classics. If you’ve been bored in the past, there are different ways to learn. Learning to play the piano should provide you with music you enjoy playing right from the beginning. Overall, there are five different piano styles that top the list.The 5 Most Popular Piano Styles

And when you know the composers, the performers, the style and the sounds, it assists you in your ability to play.

Classics
Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, classical piano was performed for royalty and the upper class throughout Europe. Bach, Beethoven and Mozart led the way. Over time, this music was transformed by other great composers, including Chopin, Handel, Wagner and Tchaikovsky.

Classical piano is where most people start because it forces them to gain a strong technique and knowledge of music theory. And with this in hand, it’s easy to pick up other piano styles.

Jazz
In the early 20th century, pianists such as Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller influenced the music scene throughout the United States. Jazz was a rebellious type of music, as it deviated from the classical rules of play. It incorporated swing, improvisation, ragtime, boogie woogie and bee bop to create new and interesting patterns.

Musical Theater
Broadway composers and lyricists are the foundation for many of the songs we know and love today. Where would we be without greats like Rodgers and Hammerstein, or Gershwin? Today we can also add popular composers like Andrew Lloyd Webber to the list. In all cases, piano is the foundation of what makes live theater as exciting and memorable as it is. And with this type of musical training, it makes very good sight readers and versatility in playing.

Pop Rock
Of course, pop rock is probably the most well loved music of our generation. It’s where most of us migrate to early in our playing process. And with famous piano players like Elton John and Billy Joel, that can be a very good thing. Pop rock allows you to explore new sounds and be able to hum the tune as you play. It’s often easier to pick up because you already know the tunes.

Religious
Religious music is found in all religious practices, bringing their own unique sounding music to the culture. In many cases, it has been passed on from generation to generation, with songs still being an important part of ceremonies today.

Which popular piano style is right for you? Explore your options and find a piano teacher that can help you achieve your music goals.

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24 November 2016 Feng Shui and Your Piano

Feng Shui and Your Piano

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If you’ve been experimenting with creating good feng shui within your home, You’ve heard about the five feng shui elements.

Thousands of years ago, the feng shui masters were exploring the dimensions of Universal energy called Chi. Their goal was to map the influence of this energy as it applies to human well-being. Their findings determined that in order to have good Chi, or Universal energy, and to promote health and vitality, several specific elements must be present. They are:Feng Shui and Your Piano

  • Wood
  • Fire
  • Earth
  • Metal
  • Water

Each is expressed in specific colors, sounds, body organs, compass directions, planets, etc. And while feng shui can take a lifetime to master, some feng shui interior decorators spend years developing their skills, you can still achieve enormous improvement to any space with even the basic elements in mind.

Using feng shui in your home requires defining all five elements according to the bagua – your home’s energy map. The bagua tells you where things should be placed according to their proper location in your home. Each direction of your house – north, northeast, east, southeast, etc) offers a different energy, so placing different things in your home according to the grid will allow different energy fields into your home.

Most grand pianos are black – the color of mystery and sophistication – and should be placed in the most northern area of the house. The element for north is water and is symbolized by black and blue colors. North is also the area for career and life path, which provides the element of “vitality, growth and unlimited vision.”

By placing a grand piano in this area, you’re encouraging sophistication, creativity, power and success into your career and life path. You’re giving your life an added boost of energy in your growth and development.

While feng shui might not always work with the layout of your home, it is an interesting thing to keep in mind the next time you have the desire to remodel your home.

Have you used feng shui when placing a piano in your home?

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21 November 2016 What Is A Registered Piano Technician?

What Is A Registered Piano Technician?

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Can anyone repair your piano? Can anyone tune it efficiently? The answer, of course, is yes. In fact, there are many websites and books that will tell you how easy it is to perform, and how in some cases you can do it yourself.

What Is A Registered Piano Technician?Repairing a piano isn’t brain surgery. Yet a piano is a delicate instrument with thousands of parts that work together to create beautiful sound. And if even one piece isn’t working up to par, it can impact the sound entirely.

The field of piano technology is unregulated. A registered piano technician is a member of the Piano Technicians Guild that has established standards of quality for piano technicians, giving you some assurance that they are experts at what they do.

To obtain a registered piano technician classification, a member must pass three examinations:

  • A written exam that tests knowledge of piano design, tuning theory, repair techniques, and other topics related to piano technology
  • Two practical hands on exams that test tuning and technical skills

On the tuning exam, the candidate must match as closely as possible a master tuning created by the examiners. The exam is scored by using sensitive electronic equipment to record how closely the candidate’s final process compares with the established norm. They must demonstrate their ability to tune by ear, unaided by electronic devices.

The technical exam requires a candidate to demonstrate their skills in assembling a grand and a vertical piano action and in making the adjustments (regulation) so that they function properly. They must also demonstrate that they can make all common repairs involving the wood, cloth, felt, piano wire and other common materials used in creating a piano.

Only registered piano technicians can use the title in their marketing. And if you see the title, you can be assured that the person you select has a wealth of knowledge behind them in working and adjusting pianos.

Who are you trusting your piano to?

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