Had the great fortune to accompany a clarinet exam last week...and the piano was a Steinway! Gorgeous instrument...but sadly way beyond my budget! I was totally in awe of the responsiveness of the instrument - beautiful!

Lucky you!

Ooh!!!! Ive had the pleasure of playing on a steinway concert grand a total of three times. They're lovely instruments alright....
As for the price.... er..... maybe if I start saving now I could buy myself one as a retirement present

Played loads of them.

*polishes fingernails insouciantly*

You mean to say you haven't.

Oh well, *carries on polishing fingernails insouciantly* they are OK, I suppose.

Who am I kidding? I would marry one if I could.

Haha, We're lucky enough to have a Steinway Grand in school! Poor things about 107 years old, top G at the moment has strings missing but WOW it's fantastic to play! Real Ivory and Ebony keys, just like a Steinway should be :D:D

IrisH - LoonY

I played one a few weeks ago to accompany my pupils at a local festival. I also have a friend who has one and another friend who has an upright Steinway!

So Steinway's made without elephant tusks don't count?

I played a Steinway grand in my DipABRSM exam - it was brought in specifically for the diploma exams. The normal piano at the centre, a Boston upright, served as the warmup piano.

My mum met one of the Steinway parteners in New York and he took her and my father up to the showrooms on the top floor of a sky scraper and played the pianos to them, a memorable evening looking over the New York skyline while listening to a Steinway being played by a pro ...........;; wish I could have been there, I'd have asked for his hand in marriage !!!!

Once....at the Wiltshire Music centre....was beautiful....

My piano tacher has two! A Steinway "B" and an "M". Actually, I don't particularly like them. The action is very heavy, and I don't find them particularly responsive. The most beautiful piano I ever played was a Bosendorfer Imperial in a recording studio in London. It has this weird flap at the bass end, which flips up to reveal another 8 keys! But the sound was totally glorious. I also heard Angela Hewitt in concert recently - she was playing a Fazioli, which sounded lovely.

Mind you, I'd swap either of my teacher's pianos for my own (a very humble upright, though with a pretty good tone).

Hope your wife doesn't read these forums!

I have taken all my exams on a Steinway grand at the Northampton Centre and accompanied many pupils there as well. It's a treat to play and as a bonus, as an employee of the Northants Music Service I can go in and play it when it's available. It's worth going through all the stress of exams just to be able to play such a gorgeous piano.

No I haven't played a Steinway...(yet...) but last week I played Jane Austen's piano An 1810 Clementi.

WHAT THE!!

IrisH - LoonY

I remember seeing a Steinway grand when doing my grade one exam, it was in the center of the room and I thought to myself, "look at that big fat grand piano! never played on one of them before (didn't actually play many pianos but hey) I can't wait!" I saw the examiner who pointed to the corner of the room, I looked there and saw ruddy old upright. The grand was for "older players" apparently.

Discrimination!!

I've just been to the website, and apparently it's NINE extra notes. Here's what it says:

MODEL 290

It is the only concert grand in the world to have nine sub-bass notes, down to bottom C, giving it a full eight octave compass keyboard. These extra notes enable some compositions to be accurately performed, which were originally scored with lower notes, by composers such as Bartók, Debussy, Ravel and Busoni. Special construction features have a very positive influence on the overtones produced when the piano is played, and helps to create the maximum range of both power and volume, and allows the smallest subtle variations in sound to be heard, across the whole range of the piano.

97 keys l: 290 cm w: 168 cm net: 570 kg
l: 9'6" w: 5'9" net: 1255 lb

I believe they retail at somewhere between £75k and £100k new. Roll on that lottery win.

Yes. When I was at university the music department had one, and I did my end of year piano recitals on it. This sounds grander than it actually was, as I'm sure my piano playing didn't do the piano justice. That said, sitting down at I'm not quite sure how many feet of Steinway grand, with the lid up and in full sail, massaged my ego like nothing else!

The piano's action was quite stiff, but the house where I was lodging had a piano with an even stiffer action (can't remember which make), so the stiffness didn't become an issue.

Now, the best I can do is a cut-out Steinway label sellotaped to my Clavinova, and a picture of a Steinway pinned above my desk, with a reminder on it about how I'll never be able to afford one . One of the slightly shorter models (6ft as opposed to 9ft) would nevertheless fit in my house, as long as I didn't mind it doubling as a dining table

Steve - if you marry a Steinway, please can I adopt your firstborn? Or at the very least be its godmother?

This happens at the Glasgow Centre too. The exam centre is in a shop (in a separate room; not literally the middle of the shop ) which is the Steinway retailer for Scotland. The exam centre is also a diploma centre. When I sat my grade 5 this year there was a Steinway grand in the room (which was all that could be seen from the door) and I thought I would get to play it. When I went in I noticed that the lid was closed and there was a Boston with the lid open to the right and that was the piano to play for the grade exams. Still a very nice piano though. I assume that the Steinway had recently been moved into the room for the diploma exams (for which that centre does use a Steinway grand) but hadn't been tuned yet so couldn't be used for the grade exams (either that or they didn't want the grade exam people to play it...). Anyway the Boston upright was still a very nice piano and well tuned; but I would have liked to play the Steinway.

Why are grand pianos always saved for diplomas? It's not like we're going to brake it or anything.

Perhaps not break it, but the cumulative effects of a sessions' worth of examination candidates and accompanists playing a piano will be detrimental to its tuning. It could be for reasons of economy that the examination centre reserves the Steinway for diploma candidates if they have it tuned by a more-expensive Steinway-approved piano tuner rather than the tuner they use for the normal piano.

Like the correction of spelling

In addition, some younger pianists would be a little frightened of the different style of piano. Simple things like the lid being lifted up and the postion/height/distance of the music can be very disconcerting to a student trained only on an upright. In my old school which became a centre as I was leaving they now offer a choice of a baby grand or a nice Young-Chang upright for the students which I think is a really great idea.

Done deal, Deborah. I have a horrible feeling, though, that the Steinway will retain an 'aloof mistress' status.

Hey-ho.

As a youngster, I could never work out exactly where to sit when presented with a grand. Intellectually, I knew where middle C was - just by the maker's name and key lock - but it never felt right.

To this day, I laugh at anyone who suggests that I give a performance on a piano without at least a hours warm up on it. Yet, I am a pro who can justifyably be expected to deal with anything that is thrown at me.

'Amateurs' (ie kids) are expected to perform on the first instrument that they are guided to (aimed at?). So who shows more skill? Them or me?

Steve

So THAT'S what the pedal in the middle is for (sorry, couldn't resist).

Not yet, but anyone who's coming to the Leicester concert in April will get the chance to do so .

Can't remember what the piano is at Egham, but it's a jolly nice one - the local music club paid a fortune for it and it's prayed over and tuned at staggeringly frequent intervals (which was one reason for selecting that venue), and I had to promise we wouldn't mistreat it at our event.

Cheers

Katyjay

Can't wait for Leicester! For more reasons than one......

The Rachmaninoff mp3 I posted to the forum recordings web site was recorded live on a Steinway D. Even wrong notes sound good when you play one of these!

The piano was not mine I hasten to add. The upright I do most of my practice on has several broken strings and a missing key!


PS I hope very much to get to the Leicester concert next year to try the piano there.

Wow....yes I love that recording, a lovely and rich tone.

There's one in St. John's Church next to the amphitheatre in Chester, just sitting there. The Church seems to be empty and unlocked most of the time, and the piano lid is open. Apparently there have been some concerts recorded for radio in that church because of the favourable acoustics.

I played a few notes of the same Steinway Grand that Freddy Kempf performed Grieg's Piano Concerto on. It would have just seemed inappropriate to play a tune so I didn't but the few notes were still very nice.

The Hall's of residence down the road from mine has a Steinway grand We have 2 upright pianos in our halls, but they're a bit rubbish, and another one in our lounge where all the As are tuned slightly sharper than the rest of the piano. *shakes head*

Oosh, how irritating.

The Steinway grand I played today was the warm-up piano at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall; no doubt seen many a good concert pianist . It was heaven for half-an-hour....

Wow I'll bet! This is the kind of situation where I suddenly feel that my humble fingers are not worthy to sully the keys of such a great piano and the performers that it has hosted. Mind you, judging by Freddy's performance, it's probably glad of a rest every now and then.

You know, if they said £10 an hour to play the piano I'd take them up on it now and again .

£10 from you or for you?

Both, then it'd be free

I was thinking £10 from me; but if they're offering to give me £10 to listen to me practice... .

IrisH - LoonY

My school has a Model D I think. It's nice But the top end is...a little...harsh. It looks so pretty, our senior piano teacher wont let anyone put anything on top of it, ever. But any musicians can play it whenever we want! It makes you feel really good when you play it...

Oh and it's tuned sooo often it's not even funny, every 6 weeks we reckon.

Since I've been at my school, (5 years) I have never seen a piano tuner.

As I live in a piano shop, the Steinways are all mine !
In my opinion, it's unquestionably the best make.

The harsh sound in the high treble part is typical, and usually due to the resonance of the short string ends outside the free vibrating part (near the pinblock or near the frame). This construction is meant to enhance the brilliant sound quality, but it's rather delicate.
You can hear the difference by damping off this string end with your finger. A piece of felt can help.

I want to live in a piano shop! Can I come and live with you acp?!

Room for a few thousand in there? We'll all come.

So that's what I need to do to convince you to actually do some practise .

I wonder if my ex-piano tuner had been at work!! He once tuned my grand (never again!!!) as I'd always been satisfied with how he tuned the upright, and I was trying to save money as he was cheaper, but all the Cs were sharp which meant that any F chord sounded as if it was nearly an F augmented chord The real problem was, he couldn't seem to hear it!!! So I called in a Steinway specialist who sorted the piano, tuned it properly etc. - wonderful!!! So the extra expense (as he wasn't cheap) was well worth it!!

I'm delighted to say I have one in my house!

.....