Grand Pianos
Buying a grand piano is a big deal. Aside from the obvious cost considerations, the first grand piano is a rite of passage for a serious musician. It's not just a symbol of commitment to one's hobby, art, or profession. The right piano can fuel greater inspiration and actually improve one's abilities. But the trick is that is has to be the right piano.
Ever since I graduated with a degree in piano from the University of Colorado, I've been planning for my grand. It's been a long road, almost ten years since graduation. I've had to rework my relationship with my other profession in software development, to have more financial security and schedule flexibility. It requires owning a house that doesn't have shared walls with another dwelling. And it requires doing some serious comparison shopping among the many different models of pianos.
If you've never shopped for pianos, it can be surprising to find out about the wide variety of brands out there. Before I started, I knew about Steinway, Yamaha, Kawai, Baldwin, and a few others I didn't pay much attention to.
It turns out there is a whole world out there. If you do enough shopping, you can find pianos that are absolutely extraordinary, yet don't have the added cost of the brand premium of a Steinway.
After more than a year of deciding and wrestling, I've ordered my grand piano. I ordered a Charles Walter 190. The Charles Walter has an impeccable reputation among pianists and technicians. I found it completely superior to Yamaha and Kawai. It's an American-made piano, and has a tone that I find much more interesting than many of the European and Asian models.
At this point, I believe the only way that I could have found a finer piano would have been to get one that was either significantly longer (the Charles Walter is 6'3"), or significantly heavier, neither of which I want in my house. Maybe someday when I have a larger living room and more money to invest, I will consider a piano like a Grotrian, Mason & Hamlin, Steinway, or high-end Baldwin. But the Charles Walter 190 appears to not only be the best value piano for its cost, but the best in its class, period, if you like an even, American tone.
It should be delivered in the next couple of months. I will post pictures. I ordered it in a natural cherry finish.