This is the sixth in a series of articles offering advice from your Piano Tuner Wilmington DE regarding the importance of choosing a quality piano when you purchase your instrument. This article explains that one common problem of inexpensive pianos is that they generally do not have a sensitive touch compared to a quality piano.
Touch is the ability of the piano action to transmit subtle gradations of force from the player’s fingers such that the volume of the notes is in complete control of the pianist. A piano which has a very sensitive touch will allow the player to express far greater range of sound and emotion while playing, whereas an insensitive action will allow a pianist to play only in a very narrow and uncontrolled fashion.
Compared with a new poor quality piano, a slightly used and properly regulated high quality piano can give the player much more satisfaction from playing, leading to longer practice times and faster progress in learning to play. The reason a poor quality piano will have an insensitive action, is that it is expensive to make a sensitive action. Each key on a piano has numerous levers and pivot points, called action centers, with very close tolerances. If these levers and action centers are not made within small very tolerances, the force from the player’s fingers will not be carefully transmitted. It can feel comparatively as though the pianist is driving a truck rather than playing the piano. The result is a much less satisfying experience of playing.
Each note of a piano has ten major adjustment points and numerous small alignments, all of which must also be regulated carefully in order for the action to work well. With a poor quality instrument, a piano technician can go through all these steps and the action still does not respond sensitively. The reason is that the design and construction was not done carefully. All the adjustments in the world cannot correct for a poorly designed piano.
At Kenneth Keith Piano Services, your Piano Tuning Wilmington DE experts, we will be happy to advise you on the choice of a piano, or to appraise any piano that you are considering for purchase. Besides serving the Delaware area, we also provide Piano Services in the Philadelphia, Eastern Shore MD and Southern New Jersey areas.