As a pianist who's started to build up a lot of performing experience in different situations, I've had to get used to different pianos. This is all part of the job, I accept, though there are far too frequently cases where I've had to perform a demanding programme as a soloist without first trying out the instrument I will be using. Even this, with experience, I can accept - as long as the instrument in question is of a good enough quality to be able to respond sensitively to what I am doing, showing all the tiny details and nuances that have taken hours of practice.

What I object to is when faced with a situation in a competition, where other competitors playing different instruments will be used to their (usually good quality) instruments, while I will be forced to perform my programme on an instrument of far inferior quality, thus compromising the overall effect of my performance and the level of sensitivity and dynamic range I will be able to show. Too often competitions are run by disorganised non-musicians who believe that as long as an instrument is 'in tune' (to put it loosely), then it must be adequate. Worse still when the judges fail to take the quality of the pianist's instrument into account. This happened last year at a festival where the criticisms I received were as a result of the shortcomings of the piano, not my musicianship.

I am now in the position where I will be having to perform a programme of Haydn and Brahms on a piano that lacks the sparkle and clarity required for the former, nor the depth and resonance for the latter. Once again, the performance is compromised through no fault of my own. It is not as if there are a lack of decent venues with a good-quality instrument, I live in a capital city! I feel very angry, especially after I rang the organiser to see if they could use another instrument in the building which I knew to be of better quality, only to be told that it was in use and that there was 'nothing he could do about it'.

Rant over.

ooooh....*edges away quietly*

as a fellow hannah, pianist and edexcel music victim, i must sympathise!

In June I will be playing a beaten up, underdamped, baby grand piano in a small concert. I have half a mind to take my Clavinova along with me instead . One beaten-up tone can be coaxed out of it, and the dynamic range is minimal. Last time I played it, I rapidly played three sfz chords; being on castors with no lock feature, it jumped 10cm away from me . Thankfully, I won't be being marked.

I distinctly recall Stephen Hough remarking that there would be certain concert venues to which he would not be returning, having found the piano to be most unsatisfactory....

YAP - Ahh, but in April you'll be playing a Steinway model B

hannah - I sympathise. Even someone like me, who is really inexperienced still feels that some pianos are too bad to be played on - it's something which non-musicians as you say don't understand. We have three beaten up pianos at school, one fantastic one. When I play the worst one, its as though no-one else understands but you, you are the one playing it and you know best.

It's frustrating more than anything.

Over the years I've played a number of different pianos and really envy instrumentalists who have the luxury of playing their own. Mine have ranged from pianos in churches or church halls where some of the keys don't sound at all, to a lovely grand piano in a cathedral which was on castors and on a stone flagged floor - as I played it moved gently across the floor away from me.

Has anyone played an electronic piano where the pedals are not part of the piano but are plugged in separately? I have to do this for every school concert and spend a large part of the concert chasing the pedals as they move further and further away from me as I use them. I've now learned to jam them against a speaker or something, to keep them in place.

Yep, I've mastered the technique of gripping them between the feet and 'hooking' them back Speaking of pedals, I hate pianos with a loud creak as you press the pedal. Unfortunately, my home piano seems to be picking up this habit It's hard to use any subtle pedal when there's a huge creak every time you press them.

I've just remembered the best of all for me. We went to France on a school choir tour and did an open air concert in a French village square. Just after we started it began to rain. I was playing an electronic piano and although I was under a tree large drops of water were falling on the piano keys. I had a little entourage of people around me, one with a rather inadequate umbrella, and one with a tissue who dabbed at the keys as I was playing to mop up the water before i needed to hit that key again. I ended the concert rather stressed!!!!

Trebor, I've played the 'hooking' game with the pedals too, but find that I need three feet - two to hook and cling on to the pedals and the third to use it, otherwise they still run away from me as soon as I let one foot go in order to use the pedal.

Me too! I've played some truly horrible pianos in my time, and yes I have found myself chasing pedals across the floor when playing certain electronic pianos! Horrible isn't it!

Seriously though if you are accompanying village events you have to get used to shocking pianos. Keep focused in your mind that at least there are concerts going on in the community ratehr than just in City-Centre concert halls!

A friend of mine told me about an experience he had when he was the finalist in a fairly prestigious music competition a number of years ago. The organisers had booked a well-known theatre in the south of England for the final. When the competitors arrived, they found that the piano was a stage prop, with half the notes unplayable. They all refused to play as a result. The organisers couldn't understand the problem! They had booked the theatre and enquired about the availability of a piano, and had been assured that there was a piano in the theatre.

After a couple of hours, a lorry rolled up and unloaded a very good quality grand piano, and the competition took place. As this was a Sunday, goodness only knows where they rounded the piano and lorry from at such short notice.

There is one plus side to playing the piano - you don't have to transport it to whatever venue you're playing at. Tenor Sax, whilst probably only a medium sized instrument does cause me some problems, particularly on trains / tubes in the rush hour. It must get more of a problem the bigger the instrument gets. I remember waiting in a queue for taxis at Cardiff station once, the girl at the front of the queue had a double bass with her, and as each taxi turned up and was a normal saloon she had to let people go in front of her while she waited for the elusive estate or MPV to turn up.

I did a concert in a church all a couple of weeks ago. Having been promised by the organiser that there would be a good piano, and if there wasn't he would take his own electronic piano for me, we turned up to find the usual type of church hall piano (don't know what happened to bringing his own piano!). Pity really cos we did some recorder duets which sounded lovely when accompanied on the harpsichord setting of the electronic piano, but not so good on the honky tonk quality of the hall piano. As you say, though, at least it was for the community - for residents of a care home, who really appreciated what we did.

Am seriously considering buying an electronic piano of my own that can be taken to concerts. Then I too can play my own instrument!!!!!

Very true. And even with small instruments... well you have to KNOW you want to play it to bring it with you. Whereas there are pianos all over the shop and pianists are rarely short of something to play, even if the quality of the instrument might be suspect!

The flip-side of all of this is that occasionally you end up playing a stunning piano, unexpectedly! I accompanied a young violinist and as we walked into the exam room I nearly fainted at the sight of the Steinway grand I was going to be playing! What a treat!

Very easy remedy for the problem of escaping pedals - I have a strip of non-slip rubber matting (bought from Halfords or something to stop things sliding around in the back of a car) and it works a treat.
I have to admit my Roland fp8 keyboard has been very useful over the years - especially the time I rang a village hall to ask if there was a piano stool with the piano in the hall or did I need to bring my own (this was 1 hour before the concert!) and the reply was 'what piano?' ....................

Good idea - think I might try this.

I was scarred by playing a bad piano one year. i think i was only 10 or 11 and playing a very simple piano duet with my mum at a WI thingy of all places. I sat down to play the piano,my mum beside me.neither of us had tried the piano, but we were expecting a typical untuned sort of noise, infact it turned out that none of the higher keys actually worked. so i had to sing my line. Ah the nightmare of all nightmares. It was so embarrassing. And has haunted me ever since!