Now, see this!

Any opinins about this keyboard? Could Chopin's Etude in c minor op 10/12 be played on it?

 

I must be missing something but this looks a perfectly normal keyboard that should not stop you from playing this etude, if you were so inclined.

 

Yes, you are missing something. The keyboard is perfectly normal, as you say, so look instead at the lid and fingerboard.

 

Seems like the lid is hovering further over the keys than usual. and maybe the fingerboards are closer to the keys, and higher, than usual. But then, it's an upright not designed for virtuoso pyrotechnics. Just don't play that etude then ! There's always the Raindrop prelude

 

There! You see that also. Would that I had done so myself five years ago! That is the famous Geyer and an explanation why you suggested some time ago I might better take lessons again.

It is three weeks now that I I have been able to practise on a better, though always, upright, piano. 2,5 to 3 hours a day, 5 days a week and I have been able to return to the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Mozart and Beethoven sonatas (among them op 27/2 in c minor - the last movement, which is impossible on this... this... this Geyer) some of Bortkiewicz's preludes, Debussy, Shostakovich's Fantastic Dances and even some of the Chopin Etudes.

Believe me or not, I was having difficulties playing Tchaikovsky's Album for the Young on this G!

Have I recorded anything? Yes, I tried, but remember I have a voice recorder and it seems to normalise (I remember a fellow member said these devices do do that) so any dynamics between FF and PP cease to exist.

 

Sorry to be dense -- I do not usually evaluate pianos through visual cues.
Is the problem that your hands bump into the lid and music rack?

 

The music rack indeed seems a real obstacle. Makes you wonder if a design is not tested before going production.
Personally I'd take the lid off and concoct my own music stand, even if that means drilling into the front of the piano.

 

Yes: and get jammed on the falboard whenever I need to swing my hand. If the thumb is on a black key... The back of the middle finger scrapes against the edge of the lid, which is sharp, while the tip bangs against the fallboard. Lifting the hand to jump (cross hands movement) usually results in the rack's being hit and the score falling. This I have solved by closing the rack and placing the scores on a lectern which rests on the top of the lid.

Hitting a black note is a nightmare, as the mind insticltively retracts the finger from the danger zone, resulting in a note being stuck on the front edge and the finger skidding, hitting an adjacent key.

Add to this that dynamics can only be obtained by sheer force you will appreciate why I have been such a bad pianist!

The resuit of all this: that only simple and slow can be played with any success. If you look at my recordings, that is just what is there.

 

Things made in East Germany were like that: no practical consideration were to be reckoned.

Not being my piano (let us be thankful for small mercies) this is not a thing I propose to do.

 

Hell no, don't propose, just DO it. Teach them to lend somebody such a sorry piece of Commy crap :twisted:

Any chance now of getting a more decent instrument ?

 

I want to see come September if I cannot get something better, though was is up for rent is only marginally so, buying cashdown is not feasable and on the never-never not moral.

To tell the whole story, I was still my our old flat when I earmarked a Yamaha with "silent" technology. The transporters came along and saw the stairwell and after their report the shop said no. So I had to choose a smaller one and that was what they had. I did not swap when we changed flats because I thought we were only going to be here for six months. That was three years ago, but it was only decided three days ago that we can stay here until the end of 2014.

I hope now you appreciate that under such conditions my recordings are not that bad after all. They may not be Horowitz but they are not Auntie Dottie on an off day either.

 

You did get better over time. I do realize the darned Geyer is a handicap and I'd be interested to see what you could do on a decent instrument.

 

No: I did not get better, quite the contrary and I was near giving up playing altogether. Before this three week stint I was two months without playing. Missing it but not to the point I wanted to try that piano.

Over time I simply figured what could be played on it and how to control the mechine.

 

Ugh! Wow. You will be so happy when you get a better instrument -- or find a way to practice on one...

 

Well, for three weeks I was practising on a Roesler. The action was hard but yelding, that it, once pressed, they keys did not suddenly give and I was doing quite well. Today (I asked for it) I practised on another one, a Gershwin (yes: that is the name!). I could not do it: apart from the fact that playing a Bach prelude the ab key ternded not to go back to position fast enough when alternating with a g, I always seemed to hit two keys at the same time, principally during octaves. Funny: none of that happened on Friday... In matter of fact, nothing of which I practised on Friday came. Can it be that run-of-the-mill pianos are not constructed to precise standards and that the distance between keys varies? This is not the first time I have noticed this.

I better go back to the other one tomorrow.

 

what a waste! Could he not at least have stolen a 3/4 grand instead of a baby? Or was it in the maternity ward?

 

Haha... you have to be Russian (or at least Slavic) to undertake something so grandly stupid

 

Let me embarass you: My wife is Russian. :roll: What can she not pinch a grand for me? :evil:

Now we are friends again!

Had he taken it home and sold it next year he would have got away with it.