Digital Piano

I bought my digital piano last night. It's in my bedroom now as I speak.

I'm fairly happy with it, although I've noticed that I need to hit the higher keys harder to hear them over the bass notes. On a real piano, you don't have to press them as hard because the natural frequency of the notes will allow them to be heard over the lower-frequency bass notes. (The same reason you don't need as many sopranos as you do altos/baritones/basses) So there's something Yamaha can improve on (unless they already have that feature in an upgraded -i.e. more expensive- line of keyboards). The other glaring "feature" is in the sustain pedal - you have to press the sustain pedal for however long you want the sustain to last. On a real piano, the sustain will continue for a short time after you release the pedal; it sounds "soft". The keyboard sounds "hard".

However, it does appear to be a suitable substitute for my upright until I can get a real place of my own (condo, or dare I hope, house?) so I can move my piano here. I was told by the sales guy that you don't get bigger bang for your buck than the Yamaha YPG-625.

I also noticed that I really suck at piano now. This is what I get for not having something to practice on consistently for over 5 years. I feel really hurt that I didn't pay more attention during my piano lessons back in the day. (I started piano when I was 4, and stopped "real" private lessons when I was 9 and moved to Utah.) That was a bit of shooting-myself-in-the-foot. I'm not sure if I had the potential to be great at piano, and while I can read sheet music, I'm not fluent at it. That would be a sexy skill to have.

I remember this girl who was in my choir class in high school. She was our accompanist, my age, and she could read sheets like there was nothing to it. I hope she went on to study music in college.

I do have a lot of sheet music (and just purchased a lot of new sheet music), so I won't be starved for something intellectually and creatively stimulating. I ended up having to buy books for the Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Mozart pieces I want to learn, so I guess that gives me an additional reason to learn the other pieces. I ended up buying more pop pieces than I intended, but James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover" sound incredible as piano pieces, even if you don't like the guy.

With this digital piano, I can start recording some of my playing (when I get back into practice and feel comfortable recording!). I've thought about posting some of that out on YouTube. My digital camera can record video, so I thought that cutting my own videos, and adding music (or even mixing covers of my favorite pop pieces) would be something creative and fun to do.