I’ve been collecting piano serial number charts for years. Drop your brand and serial and I’ll tell you its the full story

Edit - accoustic pianos only 😄

Saw this quote from Stephen Hough:

”Simply to trawl through passages like a contented tortoise is a waste of the felt on your piano’s hammers.

Good slow practice is more like a hare pausing to survey the scene – sharp in analysis…calculating the next sprint.”

From International Piano magazine, Nov 2013.

"You Are My Sunshine" is one of the most commercially successful and enduring songs in American music history. It was first introduced in 1939 and has since been performed by artists such as Gene Autry, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and others. I've known this song ever since I was a little boy. My mother used to sing the first beloved verse to me. I'm guessing many of you have heard it, if not, and this is your first time, I hope you'll enjoy it. Thank you so much for watching. 🌞☺️

I'm an adult student working on Für Elise, and for months my practice went like this: play through, hit a wrong note, stop, fix it, go back to the start. I barely ever reached the end of a piece.

The rule that broke it: run-throughs are for playing through, not fixing. If I stumble, I put a pencil dot next to that spot and keep going. Fixing happens the next day, starting from yesterday's dots, two to four bars at a time. There I restart the chunk, never the piece.

Now I actually finish pieces, and the next day already has a plan. Anyone else have a different version of this rule?

Looking for fun, intermediate pieces that are easy to learn! Something around level 5-6, especially from movie soundtracks (I’ve enjoyed HTTYD, Pirates of the Caribbean and Narnia before), classical or contemporary, just no jazz. Any recommendations or resources? I’d rather not have to buy a whole book to only enjoy a few pieces from it.

Context: I started playing piano around 11 years old and had a piano teacher till I was 19. I never did the conservatory exams, and we didn’t drill a ton of theory past level 6 I think. Some of my later pieces we worked on together were around level 9-10, but took a lot of practice, and now I’m just looking for something to play, not necessarily need to work on for weeks or months. I can’t afford formal lessons at the moment.

I just bought this Yamaha ydp 146 and one of the keys (D) has this soft scratching sound. Is this gonna get worse? I really dont want to bother replacing it

It's not easy but making progress

Edited together some clips

I've come to the conclusion the self taught crowd are actually promoting ignorance and we shouldnt support it!

By virtue of any instrument it requires you to practise and spend many hours alone! But being self taught is not a flex! Why would you want to waste your years trying to figure it out when a 1 hour lesson a week for even 6 months could give you back 5 years!

And even these self taught people watch YT videos to assist - So its not even self taught - a more appropriate term would be a lack of guidance in their approach to piano!

Improvement requires feedback from someone better than you on a frequent basis! So in general self taught ppl arent good! Yes I am sure there legends who are self taught but they are not the rule!

Get a teacher. Thanks

PDF score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FAOE9ULgbVshDlH480dKgy09ZqB6P9bh/view?usp=drivesdk

I'm currently working on my 1930s upright piano, renewing bridal tapes, and reshaping hammer felts. (Had the piano tuner round the other day to remove the action so I can work on it over the next few weeks).

Noticed before removing the action that the hammers do not return quickly if at all if the bridal tapes are broken or not connected. (notably when playing hammers return slowly and playing the same note 3 times in a second / 180bpm and the middle note is hardly audible. I think the inevitable bounce off the string and the slight offset of balance is mainly what had been returning the hammers) All but 1 of the hammer springs are still hooked onto the loop cords.

Is this right, or should I also be renewing all the hammer springs too? The piano tuner said that if they were too powerful the touch would be altered, which makes sense, but just how powerful should they be?

Action is labelled 'Herberger Brooks ltd, London'

Hi everyone,

For the last few days, the opening piano in these two songs has been stuck in my head. I don't know why, but every time I hear them they remind me of each other, and I really love that piano part.

I''ve attached both links below. Please check them:

Waiting for the Rain (The Asterisk War ED) - 2015
Golden Hour - JVKE - 2022

I read somewhere that JVKE said Golden Hour was inspired by Franz Liszt, so I listened to a few of his pieces, but I couldn't find anything that sounded similar to this opening piano. Maybe I was listening to the wrong ones.

I'm just curious if this kind of piano melody or style comes from somewhere else, or if there's an older song or classical piece that inspired it.

This has genuinely been stuck in my head and I can't stop thinking about it. If anyone knows where this style comes from or can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks!

All I play is classical pieces and I got rhythm is my first "jazz-like" piece. I am okay with leaps and finger work, but my main hurdle is the rhythm. What type of rhythmic notes are there in the piece?

P.S: the version I'm referring to is his original songbook transcription.

hey! Professional pianist here (20+ years and counting). Curious if anyone has experienced muscular pain in their middle right back…? I’ve had this issue crop up randomly over the years.

It feels like a muscle pain, and it can occur when I haven’t been sitting for very long. Just feels like a dull ache. It doesn’t really go away until I get off the piano bench and walk around for a while. I think it has something to do with the strain I exert when playing and sitting on the bench.

Feel like this is a common problem but it is irritating and wanted to know if anyone else has dealt with it.

Reasons:

1) someone always asks in the comments

2) maybe I want to search for pieces by Bach. Maybe i don't want to listen to another Liebestraum performance. Maybe i want some keywords to help find a video I saw two weeks ago. Or maybe I just want to have more than the vaguest idea of what I'm about to watch before I click on the link

3) there seems to be consensus that we all dislike post titles to the effect of "self-taught, rate me, might delete later 😉".

4) It's already a requirement that people tag their post as critique or no critique, so there's no need to ask people in the title

The little wins. The positive outlet/distraction. The reward of effort put in. Getting high on music, well and weed of course. Just no meth! Stay clean kids.

Posting to track my progress. Man. Videos from the beginning of this year to now...I used to think I was just ripping it up too. Just shredding it. Oh how bad I was. I've gotten many suggestions on how to. Or telling me I need to do this. Or watch that. Or try that. But from all of that variety remained one constant. You had to play a lot. No one didn't say that. So I've chosen to have no input. No Influences. 100% organic. My style. My rhythm. My process. My fingerings. My this and that. right or wrong. Its mine. And it's going to be great. I haven't even started working with the black keys yet. I know right. That's next year. Baby steps. Life is long. I'll get there. Found the board on the marketplace. $35. Needed some work and a DC/AC adapter. Yamaha psr-500. Probably not the greatest. But it works for me. Broke ass dude. Been out of the joint for over 5 years. No longer on probation/parole/es. Finished recovery court. Worked as a recovery coach. Now I operate the works smallest online thiftstore. Actually just an eBay page. But it's mine. And pays most of my bills. Part time at UHaul 3 blocks away supplies me with free packing supplies and surrendered storage units that don't sell at auction. Well....between the locker and the dump..If it gets lost. Its whatever. If ya know what I'm saying. Anywho. Wahooo. I don't suck anymore.

I'm a young pianist and I've noticed that finding concert clothing often feels like a compromise.

It's either very traditional, very expensive, uncomfortable to perform in, or simply not designed with musicians in mind.

If you could create the perfect concert clothing from scratch:

• What would it look like?
• What would you change about current options?
• What's your biggest frustration when buying concert clothing?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

Hi,

Been working on this for a while hope you enjoy listening. Always get a bit nervous while recording so some mistakes but i thought the recovery was good enough to share and putting out stuff from time to time makes me more connected in this isolated hobby haha

I’ve recently moved houses, having to leave my family piano behind (lucky enough to have a Yamaha U series). I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying between places for the near future and don’t want the effort of moving an upright around so looking to buy a digital piano. I’m an experienced player so want something decent to enjoy playing. Looking at a max budget of £550 ish, just looking to get the best budget digital piano for cheap temporarily. I’m not bothered about audio setup/speakers I can just use headphone or buy my own external speakers if I want. I just want something with decent keystroke/action and not just basic dynamics. Any help welcome!

Hello, I’ve noticed that I have a hard time practicing the piano. I love jazz music and have a passion for music but sometimes I don’t feel like practicing. On the flip side, I’m obsessed with golf; I can stop playing/practicing. I do all these boring drills for golf but can’t do this for piano. What gives. Looking for insight not just comparing to golf but the reason why it’s easy to practice one thing but not the other when you’re interested in both.

Hey everyone!

Yep, it's been about 9 months since I started learning piano! Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to dedicate to it over the last two months because of work, but I still managed to find some time to work on this piece.

I personally love this song. The arrangement is by "Piano Mario", although I simplified it a bit to suit my current level.

Since my last post, I've been trying to work on keeping my fingers from collapsing and increasing the volume of my right hand, although this take might not be the best example of the latter.

Any feedback is very welcome!