This article really leads me to question what's happening with the world. True music is created from the vibrations of strings, wind, metal, etc. This digital version of an instrument, to me, can't possibly be the same.
By MICHAEL HSU
THE COMPOSER Franz Liszt, who lived for years with his mother in a modest Paris apartment, might have welcomed a digital piano. The best models simulate the sound and feel of an acoustic instrument, yet take up less space. They also don't require tuning, are impervious to the swings in humidity that wreak havoc on standard pianos, and can be played silently with the use of headphones.
"For students, a good digital piano is better than a mediocre upright," said Andrea McAlister, associate professor of piano pedagogy at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where, as at most schools, students learn basic keyboarding skills on digital instruments.
Concert pianist Simone Dinnerstein shows you what to look for in a digital piano by putting a handful of models to the test.
To find a worthy digital model, we enlisted the help of classical pianist and Sony 6758.TO +5.70% recording artist Simone Dinnerstein, whose latest album, "Night," was released earlier this month.
"I always scoffed at digital pianos, mainly because the ones I had tried in the past had a very unrefined sense of touch," Ms. Dinnerstein said. "There wasn't a connection between how I would press down on the key and the sound that would come out—there was no subtlety."
She suspected, however, that technology had since advanced. And the prospect of being able to play with headphones appealed to her. "I don't want people to hear me struggling when I practice!" she said.
According to many of the musicians and teachers we spoke with, Yamaha makes the most innovative digital pianos, so we asked Ms. Dinnerstein to meet at a dealer, Faust Harrison Pianos, on New York's "Piano Row," on West 58th Street.
Ms. Dinnerstein started by playing a few passages from the Goldberg Variations on models in Yamaha's CLP and CVP line, which start at about $2,400. On one model, the resistance of the keys gave her pause. "It feels like I'm having to push through something to get to the sound," she said. She switched to a Chopin Nocturne. "I can't play it gently, so maybe it's not teaching somebody to be as subtle as they could be." She also found the sound to be electronic and fake.
Ms. Dinnerstein was pleased, however, with the Yamaha CLP-480 (about $5,600, yamaha.com ). "The way it sustains is much more similar to a piano," she said. "It has a lot of variety of touch and sound. I like this one." Her only complaint: The keys were too stiff. "But you could say the same about an acoustic piano; some are a bit brutal in how they make you play," she said.
“'I could probably be fooled that this was a real piano,' said Simone Dinnerstein.”Yamaha's AvantGrand line is one of the more advanced (and expensive) on the market. The two top instruments in the range simulate the feel of string resonance by sending subtle vibrations to the keys as you play. And the sound reproduction is purportedly state of the art.
Ms. Dinnerstein started on the AvantGrand N2 (about $12,000), an upright piano with the action and sound of a grand. "I think this is kind of amazing actually. I could probably be fooled that this was a real piano," said Ms. Dinnerstein. "There's something a little bit freaky about it—but I love it. I would definitely consider having one of these." (She noted, though, that while the sound was "really close" to an acoustic piano, the timbre was markedly more electronic when she played with headphones.)
The higher priced model wasn't necessarily better. The larger AvantGrand N3 (about $16,000) sounded and felt less realistic to Ms. Dinnerstein than the N2.
At Allegro Pianos, a dealer next door, she played a Kawai CA95 ($5,745 list, dealer pricing varies, kawaius.com ). According to the manufacturer, the instrument has a spruce-wood soundboard that "faithfully reproduces the tonal ambience of an acoustic piano." But Ms. Dinnerstein was not convinced. "It's a certain kind of sound that is a bit brittle and a bit nasal," she said. She was also unimpressed with the feel of the instrument.
Can a digital piano teach me to play?
Some digital pianos have a high-tech teaching feature: keys that light up to indicate which ones you should press next when playing a song that's preloaded on the instrument. But is this approach useful for beginners?"Yes, but most people quickly outgrow it," said Rachel Kramer, a piano instructor and director of member development at the Music Teachers National Association. Light-up keys only help with one aspect of reading piano music, she said: learning the notes on the keyboard. Students tend to pick that up quickly. "It's deciphering the sheet music that blows most people's minds," she said.
Yoheved Kaplinsky, chairwoman of the piano department at the Juilliard School, said that she wouldn't use the feature when teaching, but "anything that makes practicing the piano more attractive is legitimate." Ultimately, though, the lights are a crutch. "People have been learning to play piano for several hundreds of years without them."
Ms. Dinnerstein also tested the Casio Privia PX-350 ($799, casiomusicgear.com ), a portable keyboard at the lower end of the price range. Casio makes an optional stand and foot pedal ($150 for the bundle) that convert this 25-pound keyboard into an upright.
"The sound is quite synthetic, which is to be expected," she said, but the piano would be good for novices. "The keys have a nice weight to them—similar to playing on a real piano. Beginners would benefit from this. The resistance in the keys would help strengthen their fingers."
It might even suit a seasoned concert pianist: "I could easily imagine practicing on this myself in the middle of the night, when I didn't want to wake anybody up.
1 comment:
I understand how/why you said that real music is made by the vibrations of strings etc. but with new technologically advanced instruments they can sound better and clearer than regular instruments.
In music today I would say about 99% of all recorded music you hear is made with some use of digital instruments. The music industry has been constantly changing and adapting to modern society, whether it be social movements, political movements, or technology upgrades. I think that it is only fitting that an entire industry like music would adapt something that would benefit them so much like digital instruments.
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