[pianotech] Acoustic vs. digital - there's the question!

[David Renaud]

Few thoughts on this.....

Digital keyboards are portable, flexible, multifunctional tools
For composition, midi, mobility, headphone practice, arranging,
Recording.........wonderful tools and a permanent part of the musicians
Kit. Never less there remains the following issues.....

1) sound.......others have covered it well....
2) touch.....they have come along way....still....hmmm.....not sold yet.

3)  $ value.........i don't care what anyone says, it is still a computer. Every
Year a new model comes out and very very soon the old parts are extinct.
Who wants to buy a 10 or 20 year old electronic keyboard. It is like trying 
To sell and old computer, they evolve so fast, nobody wants even last years model,
And you can barely give them away. Certainly any keyboards destiny is to become
Electronic junk sooner then later, while my quality used piano continues to appreciate
In value.

4) intangible value. Some things that make us human can just not be quantified.
   Faith, trust, love, that which comes from the soul sometimes can be expressed 
In poetry, painting, music. We spend so much of our lives doing the things that allow 
Us to survive, and then there are the things that define us beyond the material world.

    How many times have I been asked to save grandmas 100 year old piano because it
Meant so much and represents so much beyond wood, felt, and metal.  Thousands of
Hours spend investing in   a skill to express and share something beautiful, music. A life time
Journey passed on from generation to generation. Teaching something 
That transcends material stuff on disposable plastic electronics rubs me personally the wrong way.  I have earned that opinion with 10,000 hours striving for the goal, negotiating the instruments in front of me.

    I own a keyboard, I need to use it.......just a necessary tool to deliver music in
A modern market, but it is still not a piano to me.

                                                                  My Opinion
 



Sent from my iPad

On 2011-09-03, at 12:17 PM, Chuck Behm <behmpiano at gmail.com> wrote:

>  >If your priorities are
> composing software, practicing with headphones, etc., then the new digitals
> can be fantastic. William R. Monroe<
> 
> Hi Bill - I understand fully the strong points of digital instruments. When my youngest daughter was a music major at Iowa State, moving each year from dorm room to dorm room, I swallowed my pride and went with her to a store in Des Moines and helped her pick out a nice Roland electric keyboard. It did what she needed - it would record what she played for play-back. She could play it with her head phones on. It had all the voices she needed for composition, etc., etc.
> 
> Now, however, she's married, has twin one-year olds and a full-time job, and when she does take a break at the end of the day to sit down to play, it's on the restored Gulbransen-Dickenson upright I gave to her. The Roland is in an upstairs room with a cover over it and stacks of boxes on top that testify to the fact that it is never played.
> 
> Which for me, is very satisfying.  Best wishes, Chuck
> 
>