Originally Posted by Jerseysbest
I know they aren't even close to the feel of a piano, but what about getting really good keyboard? It seems like you almost have a great situation going on, living on a boat, ability to telecommute, etc.
Also, wouldnt a boat thats in constant use need a lot of maintance, especially since its gonna be in the (salt) water so much? Haha, i'm reminded of the saying "The two best days of a boat owner's life are the day he buys the boat and the day he sells the boat", hope that doesn't apply here.
See below. And yea, it's very tempting to do it, but I'm not exactly in any distress living in my little cottage at this very moment. I just sometimes get the nomad bug, which is why I like bicycle touring so much.
Boats can be tremendously expensive in maintenance (general rule of thumb: expect to sink at least 20% of what you paid for the boat into maintenance), but I've been able to hack it okay and my needs are such that those kinds of things become worth it to me, although I really hate re-staining teak because it makes my sinuses act up. I make a decent wage and come from a moneyed family, so I got lucky as far as being able to deal.
Originally Posted by Thulsadoom
Anyways, to the guy not wanting to part with his piano. I had to do that same thing a couple of years ago. I got a regular old Yamaha P-60. Amazing sound quality. Not quite as nice as my old piano, but pretty damn close. Does your inspiration come from the instrument, or from you? How are you? You only....live......once.
Thanks lots for the recommendation. However, I've already owned (and still own) my fair share of keyboards and digital pianos over the years, and they just don't cut it for me. In fact, I got the piano (a Steinway model M parlor grand) because I got sick of the inadequacies of the digital instruments that I had to deal with when I was a college student, as impressive as they are for their purposes, and believe me - I am utterly impressed. Honestly, one of the things I've been considering is devoting more time to violin and scrapping piano, but that would be a great loss.
As for inspiration versus instrument, it's not as simple as that for me. I like my nuances, particularly natural resonance. On my Steinway, I can use the overtone series to great effect in achieving certain layers and quality of timbre through sympathetic resonance in the soundboard with the strings. It is utterly impossible to get the same effects out of a digital, and a lot of the music I play - Debussy and Ravel in particular - makes extensive use of those effects. So it's not an inspiration issue, but one of achievable quality of sound. You also can't half-pedal on a digital (this is when you just
barely touch the strings with the dampers, but don't press
into them; a very unique tonal quality is produced), and the sostenuto (middle) pedal is almost worthless in attempting to imitate the actual function of this pedal on a grand. Action is another difficulty. I have yet to be really impressed with an artificially weighted action. So it's a tough thing unless I just want to devote myself full-time to composing or something.
Here are a few examples of me playing music on my piano that wouldn't work well on a digital:
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/Ravel-Ondine.mp3
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/Szymanowski-Mazurka.mp3
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/Ravel...es-Cloches.mp3