By Tom Mulhern
Imagine Mozart, Beethoven, or any number of great composers hammering out their timeless compositions on anything but a piano. Somehow, the image of Mozart sitting on the front porch, plucking the strains of "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" on a banjo, or Beethoven composing the "Ninth Symphony" on a harp, just doesn’t work for most people. It’s not that these other instruments don’t have their own charm, prestige, and virtuoso practitioners. But there’s a grandness, a profundity to the piano that’s ingrained in the collective musical consciousness of Western culture. Ever since around 1700, when Bartolomeo Cristofori replaced plucking mechanisms with hammers to build what we now call the piano, descendants of his first pianoforte have been at the center of the composer’s toolbox, as well as the teacher’s. Respect, admiration, and fame have been bestowed upon the best practitioners of the black and white keys.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the piano reached the point of ubiquity, gracing stage, saloon, and parlor. Playing a piano was a sign of "breeding," and nothing got a party moving like a singalong around the ol’ upright. In the latter half of the 1800s, the player piano appeared, and it was like a really, really high-end stereo today, something showy and fun–plus, it could actually be played, adding to its versatility and appeal. And regardless of what musical style you liked, from classical to jazz to gospel to rock and roll, the piano was there. It was the undisputed king of beasts, the grand poobah of music. In the early 1900s, there were almost 300 U.S.-based piano manufacturers; by comparison, today there is a mere handful.
During this century, the piano has been under more or less constant siege, or at least it’s faced earnest competition by newcomers such as the electric organ, the synthesizer, and the electric guitar. And like other musical instruments, for the past decade or so it’s had to compete with computers and video games. Add to that the rising cost of building a piano (and hence the faster-than-inflation rise in prices), a couple of major economic recessions, the cutting of school music programs, and decreased emphasis on the piano in pop music, and the period from the close of the 1970s to 1996 was just plain dismal.
After a long decline of about two decades, the piano’s sales have picked up in the past few years. In terms of dollars, sales have been on the upswing since 1991 (with a slight downturn from 1995 to 1996). On the other hand, the number of new pianos sold was sliding fast between 1978 and 1990, but the decline gradually slowed until it headed up in 1996. But while unit sales of vertical and grand pianos were slumping, a newcomer–the digital piano, which debuted in 1984–began selling at an accelerated pace. In only a decade, digital pianos have almost doubled in numbers sold, and in terms of dollars they’ve accounted for a rise of more than 200%. And electronic player piano sales have been in a steep climb, both in terms of dollars and units; while still a small part of the market, their sales have about doubled in just five years.
It isn’t just new technology driving the resurgence. A combination of factors have come together at once to revive both sales and popularity of the piano. As pointed out in NAMM’s Music USA (1998 Statistical Review of the U.S. Music Products Industry), favorable press linking music study with better academic performance (the so-called "Mozart Effect") probably helped, and schools across the U.S. are re-instituting music education curricula. A strong overall economy, a bull stock market, and more discretionary income didn’t hurt, either. And the flood of cheap used pianos being shoved out of baby boomers’ houses began to dry up. In addition, the sound of the piano is now back in favor in pop music, driven by the "unplugged" phenomenon, the reintroduction of ballad styles into popular music, and the seamless blending of electric and acoustic instruments throughout virtually all styles.
In education, the piano has long been central to teaching. One of its strong suits is that it has been pretty well standardized for centuries. In addition, the layout of the keys is unchanging (except in some microtonal or alternate-scale circles), making its technique transportable to synthesizers, organs, bass pedals, harpsichords, and even marimbas, xylophones, and vibes. Once you’ve learned the sharps and flats, the scales, and chords on a piano, you have the "chops" in place for the other instruments. It’s this very universality of the piano that makes it such a great teaching/learning tool, too. Piano & Keyboard magazine’s Editor, Marienne Uszler, adds, "It’s a wonderful instrument, and people love to play it. It gives a tone almost immediately, and you can’t do that with, for example, a bassoon or a trumpet, where you have to learn how to produce the tone first." She emphasizes another important aspect of the piano: You can play melody, bass, and accompaniment simultaneously.
Let’s see a show of hands: Who wouldn’t want a big, beautiful grand or baby grand piano in their home? (Never mind the question of where.) It might be difficult to find someone who wouldn’t want one, even if they don’t play piano. After all, we’re talking about a work of art, a timeless treasure. Some can cost as much as $200,000, and take up almost as much floor space as a compact car, but most are more moderately priced, even if they aren’t much smaller.
Certainly, nothing duplicates the resonance of a great piano, and even when a great piano is recorded or sampled well, the recreated sound is never quite the same. Like any acoustic instrument, there’s a lot more going on sonically and acoustically than you might expect. Every part of the piano has some bearing on the sound, from the metal frame to the strings to the body to the bridge and soundboard, and every part of the environment in which the piano is played has an effect, too.
For many people, size is a great consideration, and to a certain extent floor space has long had an impact on piano design, from the development of the "baby grand" to the upright and spinet models, particularly since World War II. If you live in an apartment, you can probably think of a few hundred good reasons to own a small piano–to go with your few hundred square-feet of living space.
Issues of size, weight, and portability aside, the fact remains: There’s nothing quite like an acoustic piano. Who’s buying them, and why? It depends on who you ask. Marvin Sanders, Editor in Chief for Keyboard magazine, offers one explanation: "Acoustic pianos are still a big purchase among pro players who want to upgrade their current studio piano, or who have finally started earning enough to buy a really nice instrument. I don't know about brand-new customers, but my guess would be people with kids and/or disposable income. Buying a decent acoustic still isn’t an investment to take lightly. I imagine that some of what's driving the resurgence is just a general interest in keyboards and musicmaking. Let’s face it, if you’re going to jump into the MIDI world, there is one undeniably prevalent interface standard: black and white keys. Look at the fact that synth and keyboard sales rose sharply last year, and, my sources tell me that consumer-channel music software sales far outpace numbers in the MI market."
When samplers first appeared in the 1980s, many purists were turned off by the grainy, gritty, muddy sounds that were often part of the fledgling instruments. But, like the TV and, later, the computer, improvements came quickly and continued to do so, until in recent years the sampled piano sound in some cases has become almost indistinguishable from an acoustic piano’s. (Today, even high-profile artists like Billy Joel, Jools Holland, Mose Allison, Carole King, Patrick Moraz, who can afford topnotch acoustic pianos, tour or record with their digital pianos.) And while the sampling quality was being upgraded, weighted acoustic-piano-like action was introduced to MIDI keyboard synths and controllers, and it, too, evolved. In the 1990s, high-quality piano samplers and "real" piano-like action are combined in digital pianos that are often housed in cases that look like the spinets and grands they emulate. (And, in fact, many are built and sold by companies that also make and sell acoustic pianos.)
You may ask, "Is a digital piano really a piano?" Some think the question is similar to, "Is a sampled violin really violin?" However, you know there’s a big difference: The technique. To play a violin sample, you can use any MIDI device, whether it’s a guitar, keyboard, accordion, drum, sequencer, etc. To play a digital piano requires pianistic skills, unless you’re using a computer do the playing (then it’s back to a question like, "Is a player piano really a piano?").
One argument against electronic pianos is the same one heard when the first electric pianos hit the market a couple of decades ago, and back even further, when electronic organs were introduced. It’s the age-old cop-out of "old technology equals good technology," or differently put, "Cristofori didn’t use electronics." He didn’t have a microwave oven to cook his food, either. They didn’t exist in 1700, and he didn’t have a choice. He worked with the technology of the day, shaping wood, stretching strings, and relying on a combination of physical and acoustical attributes to convey sound and provide the performer with playability. That’s what’s being done with today’s pianos, whether they’re acoustic, digital, or a hybrid. Today’s cutting-edge technology is electronic circuits and microchips, the building blocks of modern musical equipment.
The reality is that digital pianos are here, and they’re going to continue to be here. What’s more, kids who grow up in our ever-increasing electronic world are so used to computers, samples, and other high-tech paraphernalia that they’re not fazed by the question of electronic versus acoustic. In fact, many performing musicians don’t see the distinction, especially when forced to make a choice of using a piano with a gaggle of microphones onstage or plugging their digital piano right into the P.A. mixing console. Digital takes a lot of the unpredictability out of the recording and performing equation. Questions like which microphone to use, where to put it, the amount of allowable audience noise, and the room’s acoustics become moot.
Jennifer Conrad Seidel, who was the Editor for Electronic Musician’s 1999 Digital Piano Buyer’s Guide, which profiled 123 digital pianos, says, "People love the idea of a piano that sounds like an acoustic piano, yet doesn’t have the weight and the maintenance needs an acoustic does. They also love all the things a digital can do that an acoustic can’t–unless it has been retrofitted with MIDI–such as offering other instrument sounds and accompaniments and being able to work with a computer as a compositional and educational tool."
"In a live situation, a miked-up acoustic piano almost always sounds like a bad electric piano, no-matter how good the mics and how well-placed they are," says former Keyboard Review Editor Sam Molineaux, who has interviewed more than 70 pianists and keyboardists as a music journalist. "Unless you’re playing classical music or jazz ‘unplugged,’ you’re always better off using a digital piano sample. In the studio, miking up an acoustic piano is very much an art, and it takes more than good mics: a lot of time and experimentation, a sympathetic acoustic, acoustical separation from the other instruments, and so on. With digital piano samples as good as they are, why go to the trouble of recording an acoustic?"
Another advantage of digital pianos is the cold, hard fact that venues don’t always provide what the performer needs, in terms of an acoustic piano: "In both live and studio situations the reality is that a provided acoustic piano is rarely a super well-maintained Steinway, Bösendorfer, or Yamaha grand," Molineaux says. "For a non-classical piano player, it’s often much safer to stick with what you know, and bring along your own tried and tested digital piano. When Eric Clapton turns up at a studio or a concert venue, no one says, ‘Here’s the guitar you’re playing tonight, and don’t worry; we got the local guy down the street to tune it for you last week.’ Yet, that scenario is all too common for piano players. Now that they have the option to bypass that, it’s not surprising many piano and keyboard players prefer to use their own digital piano."
Other factors in favor of digital? Portability, the ability to be used with headphones, or at a low volume, and virtually no maintenance. It’s hard to play an acoustic piano quietly, since a lot of what goes into its construction is intended to produce a big, robust sound; plus, like a sports car, it just plain feels good to "open it up" rather than hold back. With a digital piano, just turn the volume knob or put on headphones, and you can pound the keys day and night without disturbing the neighbors.
Maintenance is virtually nonexistent with digital pianos. While a minority of home acoustic pianos get tuned and checked regularly, manufacturers and technicians recommend adjustments be made often, some suggesting four times a year. This kind of maintenance isn’t necessary for a digital piano, which either works or it doesn’t; changes in humidity and temperature don’t affect its performance.
The price of a digital piano is often much lower than an acoustic piano, due to lower construction and materials costs. Note that a digital piano doesn’t have to be small or inexpensive, though. For example, a large digital instrument like Yamaha's GranTouch Disklavier DGT2 IIXG looks much like its stringed counterparts, and is almost as large, even though it has a shallower case and weighs less. Likewise, the Bachman GRPT-140 grand digital and the Kurzweil Mark 152 pianos look like elegant baby grands, until you get close enough to look inside. Digital clearly doesn’t have to mean smaller or less elegant.
Sam Molineaux cautions that electronic pianos vary in quality, making a consumer’s choice a very subjective decision: "Just as there are many levels of good and bad acoustic pianos, there are just as many variances in digital pianos. What’s more, as they say, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. For example, I prefer the far less common Bechstein grand piano over and above any Steinway or Yamaha, and similarly I dislike certain very popular digital pianos, yet feel very comfortable playing others. I’d always recommend someone trying out many different styles of digital piano and especially some of the less obvious manufacturers–they may be surprised at their own choice."
Is all this enough to kill "real" pianos? Heck no. Sam Molineaux says, "A digital piano is a necessity for most rock and pop keyboardists. It will never replace an acoustic piano in the serious classical or jazz worlds, though." Marienne Uszler concurs: "There are many players, especially classical players, who feel that a real piano will always be an acoustic piano."
Suppose you don’t want to give up on a real, live acoustic piano, but you want to take advantage of the goodies that high-tech offers. Or what if you don’t even play the piano, but you just love the sound? No problem: There are hybrids, acoustic pianos with electronics that allow you to do such things as store your performance for playback via MIDI, play disks (like a player piano, but with a disk instead of a paper roll), and connect to a computer for composing, syncing with educational software, etc. Sensors in the keyboard link to an internal computer, and provide all of the digital piano’s perks. Solenoid-switching mechanisms in some can be controlled by the piano’s computer (sounds funny, doesn’t it?) for playback of your own music, or music from other players. Depending on the model, a "player" piano of this sort is capable of subtle nuances and spellbinding performances.
Will the sales of new pianos–regardless of their type–continue to grow? That will be left to the consumers, of course. But now that the market is a broader place, with more product types than in recent memory, it’s likely to do well. New factories, particularly in Asia, are contributing to the production base, and the growth of digital and "player" pianos is also fueling the market. In addition, young people are interested in playing music and in the sound of a piano, but they haven’t grown up in a world where the instrument/technique and the sound are inextricably linked. A guitar synthesizer can give guitarists access to saxophone sounds, or a drum pad can trigger samples of temple blocks. As far as today’s kid is concerned, a keyboard is just another controller, capable of coaxing everything from the grating sounds of synthesized buzzes and bleeps to the commanding tones of a grand piano. But the fact remains, the keyboard is still king. Marvin Sanders comments, "MIDI guitars, electronic drum kits, and wind controllers are cool, but the number of people who use those instruments as their primary MIDI musicmaking interface are a blip on the radar, compared to those who use a keyboard of some kind."
When it’s all said and done, what’s cited again and again as a driving force to bring people back to the piano is the way it feels and sounds. "I'd like to think that it has a lot to do with a rebalancing of technolust with visceral satisfaction," says Keyboard’s Sanders. "You know, it’s really not all that impressive to watch a video game master play Tomb Raider, but to hear someone play piano really well–that’s magic. It’s inspiring. And, in our upgradeable culture, it’s something that can’t be bought–you have to work for it."