The joy of finding a piano while traveling

ShiroKuro

I couldn’t decide which sub form to put this in, but I guess here…

I was in Japan for the last three weeks (mostly a working trip). Before leaving, I googled around and found that the city where I was to be staying had three rental piano studios, including one that was connected to a piano shop that I used to always want to go into when I lived in Japan, but never did because I didn’t really have a reason and back then, I somehow found the store intimidating. That was many, many years ago, but having an excuse to visit there this time was really nice.

The piano shop has a membership system where if you became a member, you get a discount every time you rent the space. If you rent the space twice, the membership fee paid for itself, so I paid the membership fee and ended up going there times to play (for an hour each). The memberships was Y1100 for a year and the hourly rental rate was Y3850 or Y3300 for members. (If you want to use it for more than hour, there was 30 minute fee that would add up to less than the hourly rate for the first hour).

I also decided not to travel with my iPad or Bluetooth pedal, because I would feel compelled to bring those items in my carry-on, and the weight and bulk just wasn’t worth it. So I printed out a bunch of scores and made a little score book for myself (I’ll share a photo later), so that it would be something I could put in my checked luggage. And also I knew I could throw it away if my luggage ended up being overweight or something on the trip home. (I ended up bringing it back with me though).

Anyway, It was really nice to have that piano time. I actually don’t really like traveling, and some aspects of this trip were stressful because of the project I’m working on, so having that piano time was really nice. I would go downtown, play for an hour and then go back to work. And it was fun to talk to the shop clerk too.

The piano is a Steinway B (6’11”, 211 cm) so just over a foot longer than my piano. It was a nice piano, and nicely maintained, but I wasn’t exactly wowed by it, I like the touch and sound of my Yamaha C2 more. But playing it for an hour each time across three visits, I got to know the piano and just really enjoyed the time I spent with it.

Since I was traveling, I decided not to really practice or work on anything new, so in my score collection, I just put pieces from my rep, pieces I can already play, pieces I can read through.

And that’s what I did. Just played. It was lovely.

In addition to playing from the score book I made, I also decided to work on taking two repertoire pieces and being able to play them from my smartphone. I know that might sound crazy — have an iPhone pro max, which at 3” by 6” is the biggest iPhone but practically impossible to read music from! But I want to be able to sit down and play something if I come across a public piano, and I don’t play from memory, so this seemed like a good idea. So at the end of each practice session, I played through these two pieces from my phone and practiced reading from screen.

Which turned out to be a great idea, since there’s a public piano at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, which I played on our way back to the states. 🙂

My next piano lesson is a week from today and I’m hoping to record something for the August PT recital, so hopefully having this piano time while traveling will prevent me from feeling totally discombobulated the way I would have if I’d have had a full three weeks of piano-less-ness.

Ok, here are some photos. First, the rental piano studio. I don’t know how many seats there are, probably more than 50. The store clerk told me that people use it to practice for auditions and recitals, and I think they hold small concerts there as well.

Here is the piano, a very pretty reddish-brown wood colored Yamaha, at Haneda Airport. Or rather, it’s not really at the airport, but there’s a mall that you can walk to from the international terminal, and this piano is in the walkway between the airport and the mall (so you can go there without going through security).

The sign says “please feel free to play”

You can sort of see my score on the iPhone:

ShiroKuro

By the way, here is the score book I made for myself. It’s a three-ring binder and the front cover has a window pocket so you can slide in something to make a cover. I did a quick image search for piano clip art and found this image, which I used for the cover:

Then I printed out the scores I wanted on double-sided paper and used a three-ring punch to do the holes so I can open it like a book. It lays flat very nicely, and I just dog-eared the corners to make for easy page-turns.

I printed out 20 scores, and since some of them are 6-8 pages, it’s a lot of paper but that’s ok! The book is a little more than 1/2 inch thick.

For a non-performance situation (i.e. where I don’t really care about a slight playing-gap) it worked just fine and I’ll keep this for future trips or other purposes where I might not want to take my iPad.

😊

thepianoplayer416

The last public piano I found was on a connection flight in Taipei, Taiwan. The piano was sitting in Zone C outisde gift shops & boarding areas. Taiwan. It's a local piano brand "Heart One" that we don't usually find outside Taiwan. The piano was put up by Everrich which is an organization dedicated to promoting local craftsmanship & culture.

thepianoplayer416

Some young students were seen at the piano playing tunes that are not technical. And young kids were seen travelling with a violin. Guess many Asian parents enroll their kids in a music program or with a private teacher.

About half an hour before boarding the flight, sat down and played the birthday song for a friend's special day. Without a tripod a phone was placed on the piano cover to record as much of the playing as possible. Uploaded it on social media soon after.

thepianoplayer416

Just minutes from boarding, I played a condensed version of the American folk tune "House of the Rising Sun". People walked by all the time but didn't bother me. I didn't have time to do more than 1 retake before heading to the boarding area. No time for fancy setup with an external mic than just a basic phone.

It's great to be able to find a nice piano to play when travelling. Depending on the location, we may be able to access good pianos or have to settle for a low quality digital keyboard for practicing.