What is the limiting factor

Irmin

I find myself saying: If I had an NV10 instead of an ES8 then…. But are digital pianos the limitation (I don't mean a 99 dollar Williams). But is an ES8 or p515 a limiting factor for most of us. Or are we the limiting factor?

If you go onto YouTube for instance and see what Viktoriya Yermolyeva (channel vkgoeswild) can do on a digital piano I'm completely blown away.

Thoughts? Comments? Flames from purists who think acoustics are the holy grail?

oshogg

Irmin But is an ES8 or p515 a limiting factor for most of us. Or are we the limiting factor?

Definitely we are the limiting factor. ES8/P515 are great DPs - and a lot can be done on it. That said, better DPs are definitely easier/better to play and more importantly, to enjoy the experience of playing piano. Also, just because an accomplished pianist can do amazing things on ES8/P515 - it doesn't mean I will be able to do it. And, more expensive piano may make it easier for me to do it.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what someone can do on some instrument. Buy the best DP one can afford and enjoy it!

Osho

Deleted

Irmin If you go onto YouTube for instance and see what Viktoriya Yermolyeva (channel vkgoeswild) can do on a digital piano I'm completely blown away.

Yermolyeva started playing piano at the age of 4. After studying at the Tchaikovsky Music Academy in Ukraine (2000), she completed her graduate studies at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT in Weimar, and the International Piano Academy "Incontri col Maestro" in Imola, Italy, with the famous pianist Lazar Berman. Further studies took her to the Codarts Academy of Music and Modern Dance, at Rotterdam Conservatory, Netherlands.

Should be no surprise she did not go through this career using a Roland digital piano.

burkey

Irmin short pivots and fake letoffs/escapements.

These two satanic spawn will be your certain ruin…

Avoid them like the plague!

QuasiUnaFantasia

In certain respects the digital pianos are limiting. One thing I noticed when learning Grieg's "Puck" was that I had tremendous difficulty playing some passages, because the (black) keys were too heavy to play fast, so close to the fallboard. When later playing the same on a concert grand, my speed picked up by a lot. Here, the Roland FP-30 pivot length of the black keys is clearly holding me back.

But you could argue that this provokes me to gain finger strength because I have to overcome the keys' sluggishness.

Del Vento

I agree with QuasiUnaFantasia but I also have a different thought, which lead me to buy the best I could afford (more on it in future posts).

Yes, you can probably learn everything on an relatively inexpensive instrument and that may be a good choice if it's all you can affort without too many sacrifices. On the other hand, the "intangible pleasure" of having the best touch and the best sound is priceless, and draws you to learn more.

For example, since I bought a fantastic M&H 6' grand (more on it in future posts), my still very good Yamaha NU1 sits mostly unused (and in fact for sale, in case anybody wants to upgrade 😃 from something) . Why? It's not attracting me so much anymore, when I have a choice I play the M&H which is more pleasant under all respects, whereas the previous inexpensive grand I had was decent/good but the NU1 had an edge on certain aspects.

Then of course we need an infinite-length pivot point, which is possible (despite sounding not) if you have the keys pivotless and simply going on parallel tracks front and back (but that too is for a future post 🤣)

Monoch

I think a lesser-quality piano (whatever lesser-quality is) can slow you down in your learning process. It's another hurdle to overcome, in addition to learning to play the piano in the first place.

When you are at a concert level it probably doesn't matter so much anymore and you can produce great music on almost any piano as you see on Youtube. Even then, concert pianists will not be doing their daily practice on a P515.

MBiG

At the moment, I am the limiting factor, that's for sure. No matter which piano, digital or analogue. No matter what the quality of the instrument. But that doesn't bother me.

vagfilm

MBiG At the moment, I am the limiting factor, that's for sure.

Is that a quote from Liszt?

David B

In my opinion there are 4 indispensable components to learning the piano as an adult.

Money: You need the money to acquire an instrument and lessons by a teacher or material for self-teaching.
Instruction: You'll either need a teacher or some form of material to help you learn.
Time: Learning requires practice and practicing take time. How much time you are able to allocate to learning will impact the speed of your development.
Motivation: You have to stay constantly motivated to learn or you'll not continue with the hobby.

I think motivation is the most important of them all. Highly motivated people can accomplish a lot even on a $99 Williams. 😀

Everybody is influence by different things. We have to find out what motivates us. For me, playing music that I love (hymns/spiritual) is an important factor in motivating me to learn. Also, equipment and environment motivates me as well. Buying an N1X really enhanced my motivation to play, and that was after I had already owned some high quality digital slabs e.g., MP11SE. I currently can't improve my playing environment (although I'd like to), but I make sure I have a clean, nice space to play in.

God Bless,
David

oshogg

David B In my opinion there are 4 indispensable components to learning the piano as an adult.

Money: You need the money to acquire an instrument and lessons by a teacher or material for self-teaching.
Instruction: You'll either need a teacher or some form of material to help you learn.
Time: Learning requires practice and practicing take time. How much time you are able to allocate to learning will impact the speed of your development.
Motivation: You have to stay constantly motivated to learn or you'll not continue with the hobby.

I think motivation is the most important of them all.

That's very well put. For me, all 4 factors have changed over time. When one is more available, the others decline and vice-a-versa.

Osho

MBiG

vagfilm Is that a quote from Liszt?

No, but I'll have to look for quotes from him on the internet when I get a chance. That's interesting!!!

Skropi

vagfilm MBiG At the moment, I am the limiting factor, that's for sure.

Is that a quote from Liszt?

Whatever it is, it is the simple truth. People have the tendency to blame the equipment, when they are just not putting enough time in, or they just have unreasonable expectations.

As for the topic, yes, as long as someone has a dp that is at a reasonable quality level, the limiting factor is the human. It is too easy to fall in the trap of equipment blaming. Someone gets a nice upright, fails to play the pieces he also failed at when playing a dp, and suddenly the reason for the failure is that he doesn't have a grand. He gets a grand, and suddenly the reason for the failure is that the grand is a budget one.

The reason is almost always lack of practice, or impatience, or both.

CyberGene

Liszt would blame the piano not himself 🤣

MBiG

CyberGene

I am an average driver, he (L) is (was) a Formula 1 driver. End of my OT....😉

MBiG

Addendum:

If the official ratings are to be believed, I am even below average. I am currently working my way through Schuhmann's OP.15. "...Leichte Sücke für das Pianoforte..." 🤭 I am currently very fond of romantic music and anyone who has (had) children themselves will certainly recognise some scenes with their own children in his interpretations.

So, now I'll stop with my OT, otherwise the hammer will come, the "Bann Hammer". 😳😉

Irmin

Deleted Sure I agree with everything that you say. However that is not my point. My point is look at what she can extract from a digital. Let me rephrase my question. Could a person get as much out of a digital as she does, if they learnt exclusively on digitals. Or would they have had to learn on acoustics?

arc

Irmin

That is an interesting question. It will take a lot of practice to reach a level where a digital instrument is actually limiting your progress and the ability to learn. At the end of the day, this is the same as saying that an upright piano will be a limiting factor and that only a grand piano fits the bill. Then you can continue raising the bar and say that a small/mid-sized grand piano will be a limiting factor and that a concert grand is the only instrument that enables a player to truly express himself. And just listen to how pro players pick concert pianos and you will understand that the discussion does not end there…

A player like Yermolyeva is able to express herself in a digital that way because she can translate the sound she has in her mind to the instrument. A similar example is when Valentina Lisitsa played for a charity event on an worn-down, out-of-tune upright and after a few minutes of playing she has adapted to the instrument, despite all of its limitations. A while ago I was complaining to my teacher about the "limitations" of my digital because I could not replicate an exercise that I kind-of managed on his grand. Then we had a lesson at my place and took him 2 seconds of playing until he showed me what I was doing wrong…

The question is if you can get to such a state without ever playing an acoustic. I would say yes. But reaching that stage requires an immense amount of practice and musical knowledge and the overwhelming majority of players that are in that stage had some sort of formal musical training and therefore experience with acoustic instruments. So, it is difficult to prove or disprove such a statement.

Deleted

Irmin Sure I agree with everything that you say. However that is not my point. My point is look at what she can extract from a digital.

That's part of the skillset of an academy-trained professional musician with access to appropriate practice tools.

Irmin Could a person get as much out of a digital as she does, if they learnt exclusively on digitals.

No.

But there are things you can do to make it even worse, like spending too much time with triggering perfect VST recording samples on headphones.

vagfilm

I am an authority in the topic because I am extremely limited in my ability 😄 .

Nevertheless, it follows the logic that you are better equipped to learn musical nuances if you train with an instrument that allows more nuance. Thus, sensitive action trumps less sensitive action, VST or better sound engine trumps pianos with low count of tone layers or bad pedal implementation, and acoustics trumps them all. Does that mean that you will be a better player by learning on an acoustic? No, but it means that you have less excuses not to be good 🙂

I don't want to say bad things about the lady Viktoriya Yermolyeva, but I don't think she is a particular good example of a very expressive piano player (of course she is much better than me, but that is a meritless easy accomplishment). What I find entertaining is the opposite exercise: how expressive can you be when using the bottom of the barrel digital pianos? The casio CDP-s100 is as entry level as it gets. And under the right hands it is capable of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kSaQw3gcVU

so, if you acquire a very good technique (on the s100 or in a Steinway) this is the limitation that you can expect, and it only gets better from here: it is a significant limitation (he would sound so much better and more expressive on a grand), but probably much smaller than expected.

EB5AGV

vagfilm after some days listening to the Chopin competition, now that Casio sounds really fake to my ears, listened with same speaker setup than the competition… oh my, I will end buying a grand! 😅

MBiG

Deleted But there are things you can do to make it even worse, like spending too much time with triggering perfect VST recording samples on headphones.

I haven't understood that yet. Why does using VST with a headphone make this even worse?

Do you think that the "system environment" becomes too good and that a necessary -negative feedback- is no longer generated or sufficiently perceived by the pianist?