Piano Buying Guide - Reviews of the Best Pianos:

A piano can be a major investment which means you should do research on the major brands and styles before purchasing anything in person or online. First, consider where you want to put the piano - in your home, at a church, in a school auditorium. You need to consider how much you want to spend and whether you want a large or small piano or a grand or upright piano. A vertical (upright) piano is not only less expensive than grand pianos but it also fits into tighter places than grands do. Upright pianos can be as tall as 58-60 inches and produce the same tone quality as the grand pianos. Height is how upright pianos are differentiated - Spinet pianos are around 36 inches tall, Console pianos are roughly 40 inches tall, Studio pianos are approximately 45 inches tall, and Professional pianos are 48" or taller. Grand pianos are meant for more serious piano players and they range in size from 4 feet 6 inches all the way up to 9 feet. Grand pianos smaller than 6 feet are called Baby grand pianos and concert grand pianos are the big boys. Grand pianos have almost 10,000 moving parts which makes for better sound quality than upright pianos (about 6000 moving parts) but also means they need to be cared for and tuned more often. Grand pianos have a right side that is curved, a flat left side, and a conventional wing shape. Digital pianos are another type that we will go into further below.

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One final decision you get to make when buying a piano is who will be the maker. In America, the top manufacturers are Steinway (high end quality on grand pianos), Baldwin (often sold under the Wurlitzer or Chickering piano names), Mason & Hamlin, Hobart M Cable, and Winter & Co. American made pianos are pricier than imports since they have high quality designs and construction. Asian made pianos include Yamaha pianos (over 200K/year) and Kawai pianos (use plastic parts) along with Pearl River, Hyundai, Daewoo, Nordiska, Samick, and Young Chang. The top European piano makers are Germany and Austria with brands like Bechstein pianos, Bosendorfer pianos, Grotrian pianos, Hamburg Steinway pianos, Sauter pianos, Seiler pianos, Feurich pianos, Forster pianos, Bluthner pianos, Ibach pianos, and Schimmel pianos. The Czech Republic has Petrof pianos, Scholze pianos, Bohemia pianos, and Riegler-Kloss pianos. France produces Pleyel pianos, Gaveau pianos, Rameau pianos, Erard pianos. The United Kingdom makes Kemble pianos, Chappell pianos, Collard & Collard pianos, Knight pianos, Bentley pianos, Welmar pianos, Whelpdale pianos, Marshal & Rose pianos, Broadwood pianos, and Woodchester pianos. I know that seems like a lot, but if you were to choose from only the best, you can limit it down to about 10 makers. Ultimately you will want to play or hear someone else play the piano that you want to buy so you can listen to the piano tone and see how the piano keys respond. Pianos last about 30 years and you will have to tune them periodically, but high end pianos have good "tuning stability" which means you will not have to tune them so often. You can view pianos online if you want, but we highly recommend going into a local piano dealer and sitting down to play and listen to the quality of pianos in their showroom. You can find piano dealers at http://www.pianoworld.com/dealers/dealers.htm. You can also buy or sell pianos online at Pianomart.com - they carry the world's finest manufacturers including August Forster, Bechstein, Bluthner, and Bosendorfer. Vertical (upright) pianos start at about $3000 and go up while Baby Grands tend to be closer to $10,000 and Grand pianos are much more expensive (a Steinway concert Grand can be over $60,000).

Digital Pianos - Keyboard Pianos:

Digital pianos outsell acoustic upright pianos in the U.S. and have since about 1997. The sound quality in many of the digital pianos is superior if not equal to that found in traditional vertical pianos. Keyboards are available from consumer electronics stores and have 61 keys (compared to 88 on a piano/digital piano). The sound quality is lacking and there are no foot pedals. Keyboards are much cheaper than regular pianos and can be worth the money if you want to have fun and mess around with the variety of sounds you can create with them but they lack enough similarities to a real piano that most piano teachers will not teach students who "use keyboards as a practice instrument". That may sound harsh, but part of learning an instrument is recognizing sounds that come forth and if you are practicing on a machine that doesn't make the same sounds that a real piano makes, you will never truly learn the piano tones. Digital pianos are another story as they are programmed using computer memory so that the sounds emitted from them are hard to distinguish from a real piano. Some advantages to buying a digital piano over a vertical or grand piano are: no tuning required (saves you $100 or more each year), you can use headphones and save the rest of the people around you the headache of hearing you practice or play, you can download songs, lessons and sheet music from a computer right to the digital piano, they are much easier to move, you can record your music right to a disk, and they are affordable (less than a good acoustic piano).

Piano Lessons - Piano Sheet Music:

I took piano lessons when I was a child for about 2 years and eventually gave it up. I lost interest in the same old repetitive songs and practice sheets. I'm sure if I had practiced more I would have progessed faster and been able to play better songs, so I probably defeated myself. Now that I have a child who is old enough to take lessons, I will try to make it funner for them to practice and be involved as much as possible. Private piano lessons are about $25-$30 for a 1/2 hour. Most lesson occur once a week for 30 minutes up to an hour. You will want to interview at least a few piano teachers in your local area to get a feel for their teaching style (Suzuki is a popular method) and how they plan to progess your child along. Do they offer recitals? How long are the sessions (8-10 weeks is a good start)? Do you need a piano at home to practic on? What age children do they teach? These are all good questions to ask. There are dozens of sites on the Internet that offer "online piano lessons" and many have free trial periods so you can test their services. I have not known anyone who personally chose to go this route, but I assume it's easier for adults to learn online than kids since kids have a lower attention span and need more hands on teaching when they are younger. You can still use the Internet to download sheet music or piano tab. Gopiano.com is a recognized online piano instruction site that you can check out and Sheetmusicplus.com has over 400,000 sheet music titles to choose from.

Top Rated Piano Movers:

Millions of people move each year across the United States, some move locally while others travel 1000's of miles to new cities. If you own a piano, then moving it can get complicated. You will need to hire a piano moving company to deal with the move, not a regular moving company. A piano can easily be ruined if not moved properly so you want the best in the business with good referrals to be involved with your piano move. The best source is always word of mouth through friends and family so ask around at churh, work, in your neighborhood is anyone has ever had a piano moved and what company they used. If that fails to come up with leads, try your local yellow pages or search online for "piano movers". We found a site at Pianomove.com that moves pianos locally and nationwide. They offer free estimates online and make sure to get some references so you can check on their work. Propianomovers.com is another piano moving company that is based in California. A local piano move should be around $200-$300 while an interstate move can be done for less than $1000.

Do you have a quality site or product that belongs in this guide? We are always happy to evaluate or review new products and websites. Feel free to contact us at the email address below and let us know about you. If you have a demo product you'd like us to look at, please contact us before sending anything. Thank you.

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