Piano Video Lesson: The Best and Worst Pianos to Buy

Welcome to livingpianos.com. I'm Robert Estrin. Today, I'm going to talk about what are the best and worst pianos to buy. Boy, this is a big subject, so where do we begin? Well why don't we begin with the worst pianos to buy, and then we'll go to the best pianos to buy so we can end on a happy note.
So worst pianos to buy. Well years ago, they had very short pianos. Pianos, uprights that is, have all different heights. If you go back far enough, they were really tall. They got shorter and shorter, and there were a whole breed of pianos referred to as spinet pianos. Now spinet pianos are no longer made, but they were popular because they were very small and they were inexpensive. I remember in the 1970s, you can get a brand new Whitney spinet for a few hundred dollars. Can you imagine? So they were popular for that reason. It was before digital pianos existed, so if somebody wanted something really inexpensive, that was really an option.
Now what's so bad about spinets? Well there are several things. First of all, the sound as well as the action. Let's break it down. Why is the sound so anemic on a spinet? Well the piano is so short, the strings don't have much length, so everything in the low register is really lacking, and there's not much richness even in the high register because the soundboard is so small.
Worse than that, in order to fit the action into such a small case, instead of having a full-length key that goes to the back of the action, the key was only very short, and then there were connecting rods to the rest of the action. It was called an indirect blow action or a drop action. If you ever see a spinet, open up the top and you can see the keys, and right at the end of the fall board, the keys end, and then there's rods connecting to the rest of the action. So they're not as responsive. They're also easier to play, which may be a benefit to some people who have hand problems, but generally, it's not going to prepare a serious pianist to play other pianos. The repetition is really slow.
Now there are some spinets that are better than others. The Baldwin Acrosonic was the best of that breed. They did some technologies that made the action more responsive, still a spinet, but a higher-quality spinet at that. So that's one kind of piano that, generally, you want to avoid unless there's special considerations for hands that can't handle the force it takes to play other pianos.
So what else is there? Well I talked about old uprights. Sometimes a big old upright can be an absolutely glorious instrument. The sound. In fact, you can get a bigger sound out of a tall upright than some smaller baby grands. The long string length, the big soundboards, they're formidable, wonderful instruments, but the problem is, most of them were made over a hundred years ago. What you don't want to do is to buy a piano that maybe looks pretty and you think, "Oh, how much could it need?" Well it might need 15 or $20,000 worth of work. This is no joke, because these pianos get worn out. If the strings are old and rusty, the felt is worn out, and the hammers and the other action parts, you can get into hundreds of hours of work trying to restore one of these instruments that when you're all done, you'd be lucky to sell for a few thousand dollars because they're not as popular anymore.
Having said that, occasionally you'll find an old upright that already has been restored, and if that's the case, it can be a wonderful experience to have an instrument like this. But I wouldn't buy one to restore, and in fact, you can find free uprights, mostly the big, tall old uprights, on websites like pianoadoption.com. And if you look at enough of them, maybe you'll find one that doesn't need everything, but generally, if you're looking for a good quality instrument and it seems like a deal, check with your piano technician before you commit to it.
So now let's get to some of the pianos that are worthwhile pianos, and that would be restored American pianos or late model American pianos. We only have Steinway and Mason & Hamlin left, but if you go back to the 1970s and even into the '80s, there were a number of piano manufacturers still making high quality pianos in the United States. Some of these instruments may still have good life left in them.
More than that, the methodology of these instruments like Chickering, Knabe, of course, Baldwin, was very similar to Steinway and Mason & Hamlin, which are astronomical in their price today. But people are not aware of these other brands as much, and they could represent phenomenal value in pianos that can be worth putting some money into if they're structurally sound because you have a hand-built, top-tier piano. So it can be worthwhile checking out some of those instruments. Now in terms of Asian pianos, I didn't mention those. Older Asian pianos that need work, you should also kind of avoid because a piano that's too inexpensive to begin with, you'll not want to put a bunch of money into.
So that's the long and short of it. American pianos are such high quality that looking for those in the used market can be worthwhile, because even if you have to put a little bit of work into it, it can be worth your while to get a instrument of a really high caliber.
Hope this has been helpful for you. Again, Robert Estrin, livingpianos.com, your online piano resource. Thanks for subscribing and ringing the bell with a thumbs up. Look forward to seeing a lot more videos. Thanks for joining me.

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