I'm just back from a work trip, the place I stayed actually had three pianos, all of which people are welcomed to play. There's one in a very large lounge area, a Steinway B, approx. 100 years (based on my look-up of the serial number). There was also an upright on a little "open mic" style stage in the coffee shop, and there was a much newer Knabe upright in a basement food court.
I knew about the Steinway grand before going, although I wasn't sure I'd be able to play it. But I took some paper sheet music just in case (my ring binder that I use to take sheet music with me when I travel and don't want to think about putting my iPad in my suitcase).
On the first day I got there, I played in the evening for about 20 minutes and was really surprised at how nice the piano felt under my fingers.
I found out that the lounge would be open every day from 7am and since I had the benefit of a bit of a time difference on my side, I went down there every morning while I was there (including this morning), each time playing for from 40-45 minutes. I was really surprised to see that the serial number places it at about 100 years, because it felt really nice and sounded pretty good (it definitely needs to be tuned though). But I thought the action was very responsive and light (in a good way, not mushy), it felt fast under the fingers too.
This morning, I opened it up and put the lid on the full stick (it didn't have a half stick anyway). And it was so fun to play like that, especially because the lounge area was huge and I was enjoying projecting out into the room.
Most of the time there was no one there while I was playing, but sometimes people would walk through (there are elevators up to the hotel rooms at both ends of the lounge). Both yesterday and today, people stopped to compliment my playing, which is always a huge confidence boost.
I also played the piano in the basement food court, an upright Knabe. I couldn't bring myself to play the upright in the coffee shop because there were kind of a lot of people in there every time I went in there. The Knabe was interesting to play. My first acoustic was an upright (Yamaha U1) but it's been years since I've played an upright and I forgot how nice it is to have the sheet music so close! 😃
This Knabe was ok, it had a sticker inside with the tuning dates, which said it was last tuned Feb 2025 (pretty good for a public piano I guess) but after playing that Steinway, I couldn't get too excited about it, so I didn't play it for very long.
Anyway, this is probably the nicest public piano I've played, and I really enjoyed it because I didn't feel like I was bothering anyone, and I was able to take my time and get to know the piano.
Oh, and I had fun reminding myself how to turn pages for physical sheet music! I got pretty good by today, but now I'm back home, to my Yamaha and my iPad and bluetooth page turner! 😃
The piano
You can see it back in the corner there:
