Nice sounding Yamaha (?) upright

pseudonym58

I am impressed with the sound of this smaller Yamaha (?) upright. The manufacturer of the piano appears to be covered with black tape, but thanks are given to Yamaha in the closing credits. It sounds as if it had been tuned just before the (excellent) performance.

ShiroKuro

pseudonym58 The manufacturer of the piano appears to be covered with black tape

Wonder why…. I wonder if they asked Yamaha to sponsor them and got rejected? Or, Yamaha is their sponsor, and this isn’t a Yamaha piano? Or, Yamaha sponsors NPR, but Thibaudet is sponsored by a different brand?

I’m thinking the last option is probably most likely. What do you all think?

pianoloverus

Well, of course, if they're having a world famous pianist play on a piano it's going to be tuned shortly before the performance almost for sure. I found the tone just OK, fairly harsh, and nothing special which is not surprising for a fairly short upright. When a world class pianist plays a piano I think it's always going to sound better than if it was just played by an amateur. In other words, it's difficult to separate the quality of the piano from the quality of the performance.

pseudonym58

I guess what I meant is that it's not unusual for pianos with such short strings to sound false regardless of how well in tune they are. While I believe the pianist wisely avoided repertoire that accentuates the lowest octave and a half or so, I was still expecting something far worse, just based on past experience. And you are certainly correct regarding a fine pianist's ability to bring out the best in any piano, as long as it's in tune.

sweelinck

O Polinicello (The Clown Doll) lacks notes held long enough to evaluate the tone of the piano.

ShiroKuro

ShiroKuro Thibaudet is sponsored by a different brand?

Probably not. I looked at his website, he’s with Decca records but appears not to have a piano company as a sponsor.

pseudonym58

@ShiroKuro I'm not sure, but having the brand name of the piano masked over so obviously must be a contractual issue. Being a non-profit organization, PBS unsurprisingly does not want to promote any particular brand if not required to by an artist's contract.
From Google Gemini:
...Based on a comment from an audio engineer on a music forum, the in-house upright is speculated to be a Yamaha upright, a model commonly found in studios as a substitute for a grand piano due to its quality and more manageable size. However, this is not officially confirmed by NPR.
It's important to note that NPR hasn't officially disclosed the specific brand and model of their in-house upright piano...

ShiroKuro

pseudonym58 Being a non-profit organization

Ahh, I wasn't thinking about this detail in particular.

Simonb

Hi,

It looks similar to what I recently purchased; a Yamaha B3, but it's probably a better model than that maybe the U or SE series. Also difficult to tell as I don't know whether Jean-Yves is 5' 6" or 6' 5"!

Slightly unrelated, but interesting to note, that after I got my Piano I was very concerned about the sound it made. It sounded very harsh and I was hearing a lot of harsh sounds that didn't sound right. As a result I had it tuned (which was necessary anyway) and then had a 2nd tuner/technician in as it still wasn't right.

The room the Piano is in was very live, which certainly didn't help. So I've added multiple rugs to help with that.

In the end though the issue turned out to be my hearing aids. These amplify the natural overtones in the Piano. The 2nd tuner assured me the Piano was fine and subsequently I've had a friend play it who also confirmed that it sounds fine. I now play it without wearing a hearing aid and it's great!

Yamaha uprights are certainly bright. As pianoloverus says a great Pianist will make any Piano sound better.

Cheers

pseudonym58

Just about any musician I know that does not have profound hearing loss will remove their hearing aids when playing an instrument. Common complaints when attempting to play with the hearing aid in place are "a harsh, metallic sound", "an echo", etc.

Simonb

Thanks pseudonym58

That's reassuring to hear (ha ha) as I was very concerned that having spent a decent sum of money on a brand new Piano, that I might have bought a duff one, and all the aggro that it would cause me to get it sorted out.

Cheers