I went through several instruments during my piano journey, each played an important role and I remain grateful to all of them.
The first was a Roland electronic keyboard that I got at the beginning of 2002.
This instrument was pretty basic, as were my piano skills at the time, so it was a perfect match... but within a couple of years, I realized that I wanted a real acoustic piano (also, the Roland started falling apart). I got this Yamaha model M475, which as I now understand was an entry-level upright piano, in April 2004, from the Frank and Camille's piano store on Manhattan's 57th street.
And there was much rejoicing...
This worked fine for many years but eventually I got to the point where it no longer was doing what I was trying to do, and I started looking for a new instrument. First I got another Roland keyboard to be able to practice in headphones, as there is almost always someone sleeping in our household. This was in late 2011.
Compared to my first keyboard, this is actually an amazing instrument. The technology has moved quite far in the intervening ten years, and the new Roland feels and sounds like an excellent grand piano (if you use good headphones, of course its tiny speakers can't compete with a piano, an neither can a keyboard amp that I bought later). So I quickly found that I actually prefer the keyboard to the acoustic Yamaha and spend almost all my practice time on it.
Eventually I realized that I want a better "real" piano, and I spent a couple of months in 2013 looking for one. That turned out to be a very interesting experience, I learned so much about pianos and the history of piano-making, and got to try many excellent pianos during my search. And in the end, in April 2013, at Allegro Pianos in NYC, I finally found the piano I fell in love with, my Bluthner :
Now I'm a happy man...I think it sounds amazing, at least for an upright of any size, and it easily does anything that I am trying to express and can probably do much more, I have to grow a lot to reach its limits. I hope you will hear some of the beauty and depth of this instrument in the video recordings.
