ScotFraser wrote:

I've attended several of such college piano sales (not limited to Yamahas) &
generally found they were selling off a lot of small instruments from lesser
makers, lots of mediocre Kawais, etc, so be sure to get there early to see if
any real instruments are still available.

These days it seems like there is one of these sales every couple of weeks.
At least, here in Toronto.

Rob R.

ScotFraser wrote:

I've attended several of such college piano sales (not limited to Yamahas) &
generally found they were selling off a lot of small instruments from lesser
makers, lots of mediocre Kawais, etc, so be sure to get there early to see if
any real instruments are still available.

These days it seems like there is one of these sales every couple of weeks.
At least, here in Toronto.

Rob R.

Jay Kadis wrote
For the last several years, Yamaha has had a program in which they loan C7s and
DC7s to universities and then sell them as used at the end of the year.
Stanford participated in the program as did some other schools. I'm not sure if
the program is still going, but you might find radio and newspaper ads
announcing such sales if there is still such a program in your area.

-Jay

Um. I went to one of these sales several years ago at a conservatory,
and the smell of "scam" was thick. They were bringing in truckloads of
upright pianos of all sorts and setting them up in the school
represented as these "played only by conservatory students" deals. The
halls were lined with cheap digital pianos for the folks without much
cash. High pressure sales tactics. The whole thing just stank.

For the last several years, Yamaha has had a program in which they loan
C7s and
DC7s to universities and then sell them as used at the end of the year.

Stanford participated in the program as did some other schools. I'm not
sure if
the program is still going, but you might find radio and newspaper ads
announcing such sales if there is still such a program in your area.

I've attended several of such college piano sales (not limited to Yamahas) &
generally found they were selling off a lot of small instruments from lesser
makers, lots of mediocre Kawais, etc, so be sure to get there early to see if
any real instruments are still available.

Scott Fraser

"ScotFraser" wrote in message
...
Or why 3 pedals are better than two, other than the fact that
there's 'one
more'.

The middle pedal is "sostenuto" a rarely understood & rarely used
effect
whereby only those notes being held down when the pedal is engaged
are
sustained. Most players (& composers for that matter) don't really
know how to
make much use of this pedal.

It's a great way to get a drone effect. Play a low octave, and hold
down the sostenuto pedal. You can now play normally and occasionally
repeat the drone octave for a continuous sound.

Norm Strong

In article ,
(ScotFraser) wrote:

[snip]


Ten or more years ago I wheedled a Yamaha dealer down to about $18,000 for a
very specific C7. That's probably not an available deal anymore.

Scott Fraser


For the last several years, Yamaha has had a program in which they loan C7s and
DC7s to universities and then sell them as used at the end of the year.
Stanford participated in the program as did some other schools. I'm not sure if
the program is still going, but you might find radio and newspaper ads
announcing such sales if there is still such a program in your area.

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ------x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x-------- http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jay/ ----------x

"ScotFraser" wrote in message
...
Or why 3 pedals are better than two, other than the fact that
there's 'one
more'.

The middle pedal is "sostenuto" a rarely understood & rarely used
effect
whereby only those notes being held down when the pedal is engaged
are
sustained. Most players (& composers for that matter) don't really
know how to
make much use of this pedal.

It's a great way to get a drone effect. Play a low octave, and hold
down the sostenuto pedal. You can now play normally and occasionally
repeat the drone octave for a continuous sound.

Norm Strong

Thanks, Guys - some excellent responses. But one of my original questions
still remains largely a mystery to me, and that's the specifics of the CS
series of Yamaha Grand pianos. Scott Fraser remembers them as being hand
made (unlike the C7) and Scott Dorsey remembers them as not sounding as good
on the east coast as they did in Hawaii (by the way, I agree that the setup
and maintenance is the single most important thing...), but until this
month, I'd never head of them at all.

Might anyone else have some more info about them?


--
Dave Martin
Java Jive Studio
Nashville, TN
www.javajivestudio.com

"Dave Martin" wrote in message
.net...
Actually, two piano questions. First, does anyone know why there are both
two pedal and three pedal Yamaha C7's? I've been told that the 2 pedal
versions are gray market pianos imported from Japan, but that doesn't
really
answer the question of why there are only 2 pedals on the Japanese
versions.
Or why 3 pedals are better than two, other than the fact that there's 'one
more'.

My C7 is a grey market from Japan, and it has 2 pedals.

If there's a third question, it would have to be, "Where can I get a
wonderfully great deal on a wonderfully great piano at least 7 feet long?"

Buy a grey market piano from Japan.

Try Bob Barnes at the Piano Exchange in St. Petersburg, FL
(727) 463-7135

I've bought 2 C-7's from him with great results, for less than half the
going rate.
Both from 1965. sound fantastic (Patrick Moraz used mine in Orlando
for some recording when I lived there).

"MarkSG" wrote in message
...

My C7 is a grey market from Japan, and it has 2 pedals.

If there's a third question, it would have to be, "Where can I get a
wonderfully great deal on a wonderfully great piano at least 7 feet
long?"

Buy a grey market piano from Japan.

Next question - Yamaha's web pages (and those of several Yamaha dealers)
make a point that the woods are chosen and seasoned specifically for the US
market while the gray market pianos are not. Does this sound kinda like
marketspeech to y'all? After all, Tokyo's temperature and humidity is just
as unpleasant in the summertime as Manhattan's - why would the wood be
treated any different for different markets? (I could come closer to
understanding if they were talking about pianos built for Denver or built
for Florida, but they don't appear to be that specific - just the US versus
Japan...)

--
Dave Martin
Java Jive Studio
Nashville, TN
www.javajivestudio.com

Dave Martin wrote:

Next question - Yamaha's web pages (and those of several Yamaha dealers)
make a point that the woods are chosen and seasoned specifically for the US
market while the gray market pianos are not. Does this sound kinda like
marketspeech to y'all? After all, Tokyo's temperature and humidity is just
as unpleasant in the summertime as Manhattan's - why would the wood be
treated any different for different markets? (I could come closer to
understanding if they were talking about pianos built for Denver or built
for Florida, but they don't appear to be that specific - just the US versus
Japan...)

I wonder if it's just that Yamaha thinks US buyers prefer a type of
voicing that is more easily achieved by using specific woods? Otherwise,
while pianos certainly do change their act when the climate changes, I'd
think many instruments are kept in pretty well regulated environments,
possibly somewhat negating the temp/humidity related shifts. That said,
it'd take some serious isolation here to put my room anywhere near a
room in Austin TXm, for example. I'd need to install lawn sprinklers on
the ceiling.

--
ha

"hank alrich" wrote in message
. ..
I wonder if it's just that Yamaha thinks US buyers prefer a type of
voicing that is more easily achieved by using specific woods?

I'm sure that's most of the story. The first Yamahas I ever encountered in
the early '70s were voiced really bright in a very strange way. By the '80s
the ones from the rental companies were pretty decent and really consistant
relative to any other brands.

--
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com

In article k.net writes:

Next question - Yamaha's web pages (and those of several Yamaha dealers)
make a point that the woods are chosen and seasoned specifically for the US
market while the gray market pianos are not. Does this sound kinda like
marketspeech to y'all?

It sounds more like "don't buy gray market because . . . . " when they
really mean they don't want their legitimate dealers undercut.

I knew a few people who brought cheap 12-string guitars from Mexico
into the US back in early '60's because they wanted to look like Pete
Seeger and nobody in the US was making a 12-string. They sounded good
for the first few months and then fell apart. But occasionally someone
would hear of a good maker down there, buy a more sensibly priced
guitar from him, bring it into the US and it lasted as long as it
should.

I don't see any reason why Yamaha would use wood that wouldn't hold up
world wide. However, I could see them setting up the piano at the
fractory for the kind of sound that seems to be most popular in that
segment of the world. It might involve different gage strings or felt
of a different hardness - nothing that a local setup job couldn't fix,
but it makes it easier for dealers to sell to the typical customer who
will just put it in the living room and leave it alone for 20 years.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

If there's a third question, it would have to be, "Where can I get a
wonderfully great deal on a wonderfully great piano at least 7 feet long?"

A 7 foot deal is something to contend with.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

If memory serves rightly, the middle pedal was added in the late 19th
century to allow pianists to imitate an organ "pedal" (which is why
the mechanism is limited to the lower piano strings). The organist of
course has only to leave his foot on one of the pedals for it to
continue sounding forever. He then noodles away on the manuals. The
middle piano pedal is a substitute that will get you though several
bars without having to hit the key a second time. Transcriptions of
organ works for piano are the most common places to find examples.

Dave Martin wrote:
Actually, two piano questions. First, does anyone know why there are both
two pedal and three pedal Yamaha C7's? I've been told that the 2 pedal
versions are gray market pianos imported from Japan, but that doesn't really
answer the question of why there are only 2 pedals on the Japanese versions.
Or why 3 pedals are better than two, other than the fact that there's 'one
more'.

Hardly anyone ever uses the middle pedal. On _most_ pianos with one, the
middle pedal is a sostenuto, and it sustains only the notes that are held down
when the pedal is pressed (unlike the right pedal, the damper, which
sustains all the notes while it's pressed). This requires a whole lot
of mechanical stuff to implement, and it is used only in very few classical
works.

On _some_ pianos, it is a bass damper pedal, where it sustains all of the
notes below a certain point (I want to say below middle C). This is also
not something you see used very often, but it's basically a cheaper way to
implement the same sort of effect.

The majority of pianos out there seem to skip the middle pedal completely
and just have two pedals. I have played a few pianos that had three pedals
but the middle pedal was just for show and didn't actually connect up to
anything.

Second, do any of the smart people on this newsgroup know anything abut
Yamaha's CS series of grand pianos? I've come across 2 or 3 that seem to be
pretty darned good deals, but can't find out any information about them
other than the fact that they're 8'2" pianos (putting them between the 7'6"
C7 and the 9 foot CFIII).

In Hawaii, they were great sounding pianos. Here on the east coast, they
don't seem to sound as good. I don't know if that is a humidity thing or
just the way people have them set up. But I have heard some of them sound
great, and I have also been very impressed at the ability of a good piano
tech to get a huge variety of sounds out of any good piano. I am convinced
that the piano setup is as important as the quality of the original piano.

If there's a third question, it would have to be, "Where can I get a
wonderfully great deal on a wonderfully great piano at least 7 feet long?"

Find the best piano tech in town and ask him what he knows of for sale
right now. He'll know what particular instruments are good and what
aren't.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Or why 3 pedals are better than two, other than the fact that there's 'one
more'.

The middle pedal is "sostenuto" a rarely understood & rarely used effect
whereby only those notes being held down when the pedal is engaged are
sustained. Most players (& composers for that matter) don't really know how to
make much use of this pedal.

Second, do any of the smart people on this newsgroup know anything abut
Yamaha's CS series of grand pianos?

My understanding is that, unlike the C series, the CS pianos are handmade.

I've come across 2 or 3 that seem to
be
pretty darned good deals, but can't find out any information about them
other than the fact that they're 8'2" pianos (putting them between the 7'6"
C7 and the 9 foot CFIII).

If there's a third question, it would have to be, "Where can I get a
wonderfully great deal on a wonderfully great piano at least 7 feet long?"

Ten or more years ago I wheedled a Yamaha dealer down to about $18,000 for a
very specific C7. That's probably not an available deal anymore.

Scott Fraser

"Dave Martin" wrote in message
.net...
Actually, two piano questions. First, does anyone know why there are both
two pedal and three pedal Yamaha C7's? I've been told that the 2 pedal
versions are gray market pianos imported from Japan, but that doesn't
really
answer the question of why there are only 2 pedals on the Japanese
versions.
Or why 3 pedals are better than two, other than the fact that there's 'one
more'.

My C7 is a grey market from Japan, and it has 2 pedals.

If there's a third question, it would have to be, "Where can I get a
wonderfully great deal on a wonderfully great piano at least 7 feet long?"

Buy a grey market piano from Japan.

Try Bob Barnes at the Piano Exchange in St. Petersburg, FL
(727) 463-7135

I've bought 2 C-7's from him with great results, for less than half the
going rate.
Both from 1965. sound fantastic (Patrick Moraz used mine in Orlando
for some recording when I lived there).

In article writes:

If there's a third question, it would have to be, "Where can I get a
wonderfully great deal on a wonderfully great piano at least 7 feet long?"

A 7 foot deal is something to contend with.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

If memory serves rightly, the middle pedal was added in the late 19th
century to allow pianists to imitate an organ "pedal" (which is why
the mechanism is limited to the lower piano strings). The organist of
course has only to leave his foot on one of the pedals for it to
continue sounding forever. He then noodles away on the manuals. The
middle piano pedal is a substitute that will get you though several
bars without having to hit the key a second time. Transcriptions of
organ works for piano are the most common places to find examples.