In Defense of Digital Instruments
Digital keyboards often get a bad rap. Viewed as a cheap alternative to the real thing (especially in classical circles), they aren’t typically used in performance settings. There’s lots of variation in concert settings across genres, but those typically prioritize the preferences of the pianist. For the purposes of this post, I’ll mainly be addressing the issue of accompanying situations, in which pianists play a support role to the soloist, and thus don’t have as much of a voice in picking their instrument.
To a certain point, I agree with the preference for acoustic instruments. A quality piano will have a much better physical action, authentic sound, and ease of operation for a trained pianist. To date, even the most expensive digital keyboard lags behind a high-level concert grand. I know if I had a choice between those two options for a classically-based performance, I would choose the latter.
Unfortunately, that’s not often realistically the choice. High-level concert grands are a joy to play, but many venues don’t have anything approaching that quality. The sad truth is that many events have sub-par pianos to use, often because of cost of purchase or maintenance. There’s some rationale for that: even upright pianos usually retail in the low $1,000s, and if you move into concert grands the cost can easily surpass $60,000. Some concert grands are more expensive than suburban homes (check out these Bösendorfer prices). Regular tuning appointments are much more cost-effective (depending on the area, between $100-200), and are usually required 2-3 times a year unless the piano is heavily used (such as in a concert setting); that said, other maintenance operations take time and money, because there are so many parts. There are 88 keys on an acoustic piano: most of those have 3 strings, and all of the keys have action mechanisms with dozens of parts. Temperature and humidity controls are important in maintaining a piano well; too much of a variation causes tuning issues and long-term maintenance concerns, so HVAC costs are increased. And over years and decades, eventually the internal components of strings, hammers, and the action assembly will have to be cleaned, adjusted, or replaced. When we look at all the aspects of maintaining a piano well, the costs can become extreme.
Cost is a factor that affects many venues in question. Many places for amateur or semi-professional performances take place in churches, schools, and community centers; many of those institutions do their best with what they can, but have budgets that can’t support the costs needed to maintain multiple high-quality instruments. The result is that many venues have instruments that don’t work well: maybe all the keys work, but the tone is too bright, or the action is sluggish, or the pedal doesn’t release properly. Even the issue of volume control is tricky with an acoustic instrument, depending on the size of the piano compared to the size of the room.
All things considered, a good quality piano is often not available for accompanying situations.
That said, there are options. There are a few digital keyboards below $1,000 that have effective sounds (including a fairly convincing piano), a full-sized weighted keyboard, audio outputs to route into speaker systems, and more than a few other bells and whistles. Move into the $2,000-3,000 range (similar to many upright pianos), and the capabilities of digital keyboards radically grow, allowing musicians to work on complex multi-track recordings, sampling new sounds, adjusting every conceivable nuance, and sharing information digitally through various means. They’re light enough to be easily portable, don’t require regular tuning or maintenance, and can even be used as quiet practice tools with headphones. They also usually take up less space than an acoustic piano, which is handy in classroom environments where space is often at a premium.
So as an accompanist, here’s my solution: when an acoustic piano needs to be purchased or replaced for anything but a concert hall, consider whether a digital instrument would operate just as well for a much lower price tag. Take the savings and use at least some of it to maintain or purchase a high-quality piano for performance venues. Everybody wins.