CAUT

  • 1.  Digital piano longevity in practice rooms?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12-09-2017 00:45
    A community college in my area has a number of Hamilton verticals- about 40+ years old. These are often beat on by marginal "musicians". As you would expect, they are now like old taxicabs, looking beat up and are noisy. They actually have held up quite well considering the million miles of wear.
    There is discussion among the staff of replacing them with moderately priced digital pianos. They want my opinion. Any of you have experience with digital vs. conventional pianos in heavily used practice rooms?

    Thanks!

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    Thomas Armstrong
    Salinas CA
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  • 2.  RE: Digital piano longevity in practice rooms?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12-09-2017 12:49
    No actual experience with them in a practice room. In a group piano classroom, they last maybe 10 years.




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  • 3.  RE: Digital piano longevity in practice rooms?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12-09-2017 17:41
    At our school of music, it was decided about 4 years ago to purchase 5 to 6 Yamaha Clavinovas for a few of our practice rooms. This has been sort of an "experiment" of sorts (to see how these would work out-but there was a great deal of concern among some that it would not be a good decision to move in the digital direction. (These rooms are downstairs in our band area). These rooms are open to anyone and do tend to get used by anyone needing a place to practice. They have held up well so far, but....it has not been long enough to really tell about longevity. We have had some issues with these, for example the mounting screws are bad about falling out. Then when you ask for help moving these around for various reasons, fingers get pinched, etc. I ordered an ample supply of these screws from Yamaha and use Loctite so they will stay in the future. This sounds really super simple but it does take some time. Also they still need the keys cleaned & general cleaning, etc. 
    For us, so far we have been pleased as it HAS helped some having fewer units to do regular tunings on-I would not think that a reputable & "SERIOUS" school of music would want to have a large inventory of these. For so so many reasons. Having a few-ptettt helpful. Great for losning out in certain special situations!!

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    [Kevin] [Fortenberry] [RPT]
    [Staff Techician]
    [Texas Tech Univ]
    [Lubbock] [TX]
    [8067783962]
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Digital piano longevity in practice rooms?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12-10-2017 09:31
    I agree with Fred about the longevity in a group piano classroom. It really comes down to cost vs longevity and, how much will they be beat on. (The one thing that would scare me about digitalis is that one spill could potentially fry the keyboard.) The school may not get many years out of a cheap acoustic piano either. Perhaps a compromise of a few digitals and a few decent acoustics to experiment?

    Don McKechnie, RPT
    Piano Technician
    dmckech@ithaca.edu
    607.277.7112




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  • 5.  RE: Digital piano longevity in practice rooms?

    Member
    Posted 12-11-2017 01:48
    A few questions to ask before recommending electronic instruments

    1. Forty years later are the digitals still useful and parts and technicians available (as are the acoustics)?

    2. Will the job description change so the piano tech has to maintain digitals?

    3. Will more funds be added to the maintenance budget to contract digital technicians?

    4. Has the mission of the institution changed to preparing digital piano players?

    5. Will digitals prepare students to play acoustic pianos?

    6. Will they add faculty qualifications to include electronic instruments ?






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  • 6.  RE: Digital piano longevity in practice rooms?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12-11-2017 02:15
    Howard

    You ask some very poignant questions that should be addressed to the chairman of the music department. The most important, I believe, is number 6. I suspect that most classically trained piano faculty will have a very hard time understanding the way digital pianos operate. Not only that, but with the many changes in the electronic instruments, those faculty members who do get a grasp on how they work, will need to spend a lot of time learning the newest "programs", which will take away from their practice time, which I suspect will not sit well with a lot of piano faculty.

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    Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
    Mililani, HI 96789
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    Original Message