Any piano players?

My kids are 2 and 4. We’re gearing up for Juilliard. (Juilliard or Hacksaw)

My sister has a spinet piano. It was my Grandma’s. She wants it to stay in the family, so the price is right.

Anybody know anything about these? Is it inadvisable to start a beginner on a spinet?

Anything other than a grand by Steinway & Sons is hacksaw.

I played for about 15 years seriously, longer if you count time out of practice. I never encountered spinnet piano’s and had to look them up. Basically from what I found, they were sort of bargain bin pianos made in the 30’s with very poor sound and difficult servicibility partly owing to their small size, which means it will be a pain to get tuned and repaired and will likely play poorly. It seems you’d be better off with a weighted key keyboard along the lines of yamaha’s range (which is what I used when I had a small apartment) or a basic piano that you can at least keep maintained.

There is basically no coorelation between quality of piano and quality of pianist (I used to be able to play most douchebags out of the room), so no reason to spend too much, you just sort of want to meet a base level of playability and bad tune and dead keys make the experience a lot less rewarding.

Definitely double check with someone about the Spinet because I’d never encountered them before, but that was what I got from it.

Just googled again as a sanity check and found this page reinforcing what I read:

http://www.pianoworks.com/blogs/Retire-Spinet-Pianos-Good-starter-pianos-and-Bad-starter-pianos.aspx

Get a Yamaha fool and start dem on Rachmaninov, nah what mean?

Yeah, a basic used yamaha in good condition from a nice old lady that wants it taken care of is what we got and it has worked great.

Greenman is turning into a tiger dad

For kids just beginning, get a good, weighted electric keyboard. They are tough, stay in tune, reasonable, and don’t take up too much room. I have two of them, and they work fine. I am not as big a fan as some, but I have a full size accoustic in my living room, so no reason to play the keyboards.

If they really take to it, it will be time to make an investment in a real piano.

Put them in Kindermusik. It’s a really good program for teaching kids of all ages the fundamentals of music.

http://www.kindermusik.com/

The First United Methodist Church in Midland offers it.

Well, I played piano for some years, unsurprisingly. Greenman, my feedback is that the quality of piano will affect your kids’ level of enjoyment and learning. So, I would advise that you research different kinds of upright pianos and not settle for some random thing that is laying around your relatives’ house. I’m not sure if this applies to your spinet, but I generally find that such pianos have very lightly weighted keys and somewhat inferior sound. It is hard to pick up on finer nuances of touch/sound interaction with such an instrument. If you are serious about your kids’ learning piano, you could do much better by spending a couple of thousands of dollars on a Yamaha or Kawai console piano.

Greenman - that spinet of yours is probably not good for a beginner. Agree with both Black Swan and goes-to-eleven on either a weighted keyboard or a used Yamaha. The keyboard can set you back a few hundred and a used Yamaha a few thousand. The action on the spinet will probably not be very good and you will want something easy to play physically with good key action for little fingers. Older instruments can have any number of issues - stiff keys, keys that don’t strike, older hammers, old fragile strings and tuning problems galore, etc. You will have to listen to this instrument while they practice. Also, following goes-to-eleven’s advice to get a weighted keyboard, you can get headphones to plug in to the electric keyboard for them to wear while they practice.

My husband, a pianist, and I have a Yamaha grand, a Yamaha upright electric and a Roland weighted keyboard (he has a PhD in music). It keeps him happy. We are currently in the market for a nicer piano and have looked at the Steinways, the Schimmel’s, Bechstein’s, Bosendorfers (you get the idea). They are all different. He’s very picky - but that’s another discussion for another forum…

Anyway - hope my (and the other’s above) comments are helpful. Good luck.

No, not even close. In order to be a tiger parent, you must make your children also learn a string instrument, but only violin or cello, and ballet (not gymnastics).

But you mustn’t send your children to music college. That’s for hippie white children. Your child must go to medical school and become a doctor.

Re: pianos, I don’t know because I played the violin, naturally. (I played Piano too, but not for long) My mother has one of those electronic Yamahas though, she seems to like it. Why not just get a cheap Casio? Your children will most likely rebel and quit in a few years.

I played both piano (seriously) and violin (for fun).

If you’re buying for your kids, I would just recommend an electric $300 piano. If your kids like it after a few years, go for an upright. My parents bought a $7000 Yamaha.

i found myself a cheerleader after i told her i could play Lizst.

Modular synthesizer here, $20,000. yes

A piano with those cliche 12 fixed “notes”? Cmon man, it’s 2015 not 1800!

Wow, lots of piano players in the room. I used to play, but was never good enough to wow people for more than 10-15 minutes.

My advice has mostly been covered by Ohai, but mimics some advice a friend gave to my dad about musical instruments: if you’re going to start to learn to play, or your kids are, get the best instrument you can comfortably afford. This may not be the most expensive; it just means don’t be too seduced by how cheap it is now and figure you’ll get something better if it clicks.

The reasoning: if you come up against the limits of your instrument too soon, you or your kids may assume you have no talent, when in fact it means you have no talent for producing music on a crappy instrument. Then you won’t be motivated to improve, because you think it’s you, or you don’t have the opportunity to produce the quality of music you hear coming from others. The guy was talking about a violin at the time, but it applies to virtually any instrument.

That said, most pianists these days say that the weighted keyboards are definitely competitive and not bad for starting on or practice, and certainly better than most pianos you can find at that price point. When I was learning, they did have keyboards, but they were universallly derided as being not as good as the real thing. The technology has impoved a fair amount since then.

Amen. My mom has one and said whichever grandkid can play best will get it when she dies (none of us kids play). Best believe my 15 month old daughter will be starting lessons soon to make sure we get that thing.

You realize that’s probably a $200,000 piano, right?

If you think its either a ‘Steinway or hacksaw’, I suggest you look at Bosendorfer pianos. A 9’6" Bosendorfer concert grand MSRP is $499,999.

And, $200,000 for a used Steinway? No way. For that amount you are talking a full 9 foot NEW concert grand.

Look up The Piano Book by Larry Fine. It’s the ‘blue book’ for pianos.

You can get a baby grand Steinway brand new for 60k