I like mahogany pianos. My husband prefers the black lacquer. I won the argument. My taste is pretty stable, so there is zero chance I would change my mind about it. My house is filled with brown case goods.

PS I see the black lacquer piano as an absolute neutral. If I could not buy a new mahogany piano, I would by a black Yamaha without batting an eyelash. Those are great pianos. I don't feel qualified to buy a used piano.

We bought a restored 1923 Conover parlor grand - it's matte dark brown, not glossy black. Other than making sure it fit the only thing I did to make it work was not get shiny black which would have been completely out of character with the rest of our stuff. Ours was exceptionally well restored and sounds and functions as good, if not better than, a new piano. At least that's what I've been told by professional musicians who've tuned it and played it.

I would buy the shiny new generic-looking black Yamaha, because the sound and action would be the most important factors for me. But IMO this kind of piano looks good everywhere - there's no arguing with the appearance of a grand! For many years we had a reconditioned ebonized Steinway (not that terribly expensive) and it lived first in a colonial-style house and then in a flat-roofed Southwestern adobe brick. No one ever said "Hey, that piano clashes!"

If necessary, I would resort to tears in order to keep my beloved antique piano - >:( I would not willingly part with this if I had room for it!

one word: Bosendorfer. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, if it sounds like a Bosendorfer!

Thanks for the guidance. :)

I worry about shiny though. We don't have anything shiny and if we ever did, it's not shiny now!

We would definitely have our piano guy check out anything used before purchasing so I'm not too worried about getting a dud. We were very fortunate that our old Craigslist piano was tunable--or that we could even find someone who would work on it because it is very weird.

Yes to a black Yamaha. I still have my old walnut Yamaha, and while it needs a bit of tuning in the upper register at the moment, you can’t beat the sounding board and the quality. Just pay attention to the back (ge Board) and the condition of the keys and to some extent the pedals. Look inside at the pads. There are other good brand names and you might run across a deal. A friend was giving away her German-made piano for the cost of a having a professional mover move it.

Those lacquer finishes are quite tough, Fori. The shiny black can be a nice punctuation mark.

My parents bought a used Baldwin baby grand mahogany piano, with all of the beautiful carved woodwork, when I was a child, almost 55 years ago. We inherited it about 20 years ago, and had the keyboard replaced, and a good tuning. Have had regular maintenance, since. It sounds beautiful. I know these cannot easily be found new, but I would prefer this one for the room it is in, rather than a new ebony Yamaha. Personal preference, from an esthetic point of view. They might sound somewhat better, but I love my old piano!

Grand, baby grand, console, spinet, or upright?

We have a black lacquer console, though nothing else in the living room is black. Hey, it’s a piano, it is what it is. oh, wait, the tv is black, too. Do they COME in colors anymore?

Oh, and for the second piano, it’s so you can play duets without doing “the bump”. Or, put them in separate rooms for stereophonic effect. Says the one who grew up with two pianos: the black console, and the mahogany baby grand. Because you can have it all lol!

My grandmother had a black lacquer Knabe. It had a beautiful tone and she gave it to my sister who was a marvelous pianist. I do not know if they are still made.

To me, black lacquer is classic and always looks right for a piano. A piano is first and foremost a musical instrument. As such, it doesn't have to go with anything else in the room.

I can also see buying a piano because you love how it looks. Much like a piece of sculpture or other art, I doesn't have to go with anything else.

If the room the piano will go in has good acoustics, by all means buy the vintage piano, as long as all the keys work.

I put my piano in a room with wood floors and just a couple of chairs. The acoustics were fantastic!

What Cyn said. As the child of a professional pianist, I wholeheartedly agree.

Your mom was a pianist, Ida? How cool. In my next life, I want to have musical talent! Very little in this life, sadly.

She still is. She just turned 80 and still teaches and has a regular gig and frequently performs. She's amazing, and has been playing for more than 75 years now. She taught me for a time and saw to it that I had a couple of other competent teachers over the years, and while I can read music and play a little, it was just never my forte.

My late husband was a musician. We had a seven foot Mason & Hamlin grand piano in our living room (matte black). Our home was less than 1400 square feet, so this piano was a monster. After his family, that piano was the love of his life. Personally, I think a grand piano in any finish is classic. It always fits in to the surroundings. When choosing the piano, my husband was mostly interested in the instrument itself. But, he did ask my opinion and we agreed that classic black was best. You can’t go wrong. Good luck! I sold the piano a few years after he died because I didn’t play and neither did our son. It was too beautiful of an instrument to just sit there. Sold it to a young man who loved it. So, it went to a good home.

We bought a used 6’ long Kawai in a lovely cherry finish a number of years ago. My hubby bought it for me (we are both musicians, but neither one of us play that much piano) but our eldest daughter (now 22) is the real pianist in our family. I’ve already told her that piano is hers once she gets a home where she can keep it. It has a beautiful, rich sound, and the heavy action she loves because that’s what she grew up with. It holds its tunings for a long time too! (Though it is in need of one again.) We loved the look of it right away because it isn’t ornate looking and it’s different from the typical black or brown. I have wonderful memories of listening to my daughter play on such a gorgeous instrument, and I hope one day she has those kinds of memories with her future children. I’m not sure if hubby and I will ever get another grand as a replacement... we hope to downsize our home once we are empty nesters and having a room dedicated to a grand piano isn’t one of our goals. But we will likely get ourselves something, maybe an upright... it’s always nice to have something available to play when kids and future grandkids visit... and musician friends too!

Do the new Yamahas only come in high gloss black finishes? That seems odd . . . If I was getting a great deal on a slightly used one and the sound board, action, etc. was great but the finish was high gloss, I'd work around it. But seems like buying new there would be some variety in finishes offered. But what do I know. Our grand, when we had it, was on loan from a friend who finally reclaimed it after she married and got a big house. My piano playing brother had moved out of the house by then anyway. It was classy looking dark brown wood, gorgeous in our Victorian home while it lasted, but took up too much real estate to justify keeping or replacing. My brother now has his own baby grand, and the rest of his decor is very spartan. The piano IS the look.

Thanks all!


I suppose appearance shouldn't matter, but the pianist is only 11 so I'll be stuck with this for quite a while so I have to like it! This is my living room and in spite of what we all know about pianos not having to match because they are pianos, let's be honest: most of the time it's gonna be a big quiet thing. Looks aren't nothing!

Yamaha does offer other finishes. I need to go check them out in person. Apparently I am picky about my veneers. You can't slap red stain on something and call it mahogany! I do prefer the styling on the older ones but I'm trying to be practical.




BPath, it would have to be a grand of some type, baby to middle-sized. I won't have the wall space for an upright, even if I get rid of our current piano which has a smaller footprint than any modern piano. Consoles and spinets don't dominate the room like a tall upright or a grand so I think they are easier to coordinate with a room.


My TV is in a different room but I think a black grand piano would make it look better. Ohhhhh I wonder if I'm scared that a black piano would look as off-balanced in a non-black room as my large black TV does.


(I am not allowing myself to look at square grands or pump organs because I love them too much and I am weak and they are Not Good.)

As a pianist - and antique furniture fan -I’m with 3katz in my preference for antique over modern. Grew up playing a modern Yamaha, yes it is a fine instrument - but I always preferred the soul and the sound of vintage pianos. I now have a restrung and restored 1891 Baldwin Cabinet Grand. Much like driving a vintage car instead of modern - it is the same, yet so different. For the Victorian age, it is a rather plain case but the wood grain, figured walnut, is what makes it a feature of the room. The room it resides in is mostly furnished in Mission oak vintage pieces, and that style is extremely rare in a quality piano of the day, so I did choose quality of instrument over strictly furniture style.

That is lovely and exactly why I love the older ones (although that one certainly is an exceptional example!). A piano like that doesn't have to go with anything.

This reminds me of my, "Where do I put a piano?" thread from 4 years ago. My DH bought a 70s used piano in an orange (ugly) wood for my DD and we had to find space for it in my (okay, our) carefully decorated living room. I got great suggestions in the thread and then the next day we had a house fire and the water from the fire hoses and then a broken pipe rained down directly onto the piano (we'd had it for less than 48 hours, at that point).

They were able to save the piano, but the finish was destroyed (Yay!). I got a call one day asking what colour I wanted it. I couldn't believe my luck. I could have had any colour, but chose satin black. I love it. It now fits in very well with (what I imagine to be) my European chic decor.

I do remember the fire but forgot about the piano!

Satin black could work. Glossy black would instantly be smudged and dusty in my home. It just would!

This reminds ME of my old "how do you store sheet music?" thread! Does one's piano need to coordinate with one's standing humidor/music cabinet? I'm realizing that trying to match a piano to my stuff is futile...

The top of our piano bench lifted up and sheet music was stored inside it.

One more reason for a full-sized piano: a full-sized bench! Our current piano's bench is only 19"x14", which is actually pretty generous for a 18"x56" piano. It doesn't hold much. :)

A matching bench with storage should be part of my requirements and I would have forgotten.

Oh lord, please don't tell my DH and DD that people have humidors for their piano music or I'll have to fit that into my decor next.

On a complete aside, the piano bench that came with our used piano didn't match the piano and one hinge was broken. A visitor sat on it wrong and one leg broke. We found a cheap used bench online and when we went to pick it up, discovered it was an exact match to the piano. Still haven't got it painted yet though.

Haha! Well, that's a good thing about painted things--you can paint more things to match! Your bench and your new humidor! (Another reason glossy lacquer probably isn't right for me. I can't replicate that finish.)

And you might not need a humidor for your music. I had decided that I wanted a magazine rack/end table thingie (remember those?) and ended up with a humidor version. (It even sort of goes with the piano since both are cheap--but adorable--art deco-ish pieces mass-produced for the working class.) It's okay and will hold the loose stuff that is currently being used but alas, the pianist also must put music in the slots. This is apparently challenging. It is also, I assume, a terrible humidor.

Was at a symphony concert the Pittsburgh Symphony this week and there was a Bosendorfer and it sounded fantastic played by Igor Levit. Over the summer, I stayed at the Altstadt Vienna in the Bosendorfer suite and you guessed it there was a beautiful Bosendorfer piano in the suite and I loved that grand piano, couldn't leave the room hardly. The Bosendorfer has 91 keys, instead of 88.

I have a Tautwein, made in Berlin that's 120 years old that I recently acquired that was in the same family all those years. It has what's called an oberdampf (sp?)meaning the hammers can be removed to get to the strings. It also only has two pedals.

The tuning costed more than I paid for the piano and delivery. The tuning company had to make two visits to replace strings and get it tuned up.

It's an upright with walnut cabinet and yellowing ivory keys. I'm teaching myself piano.

That must have been right before the PSO left for Europe. They posted a photo to FB earlier today with a gorgeous piano -- I have no idea what kind it was other than beautiful natural wood finish grand.

Actually it was here in Europe I saw the POS. They played this fantastic symphony Schostakowitsch 5th among others, but this was the longest and my favorite.

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HU89289, that was magnificent. Thank you for sharing.

Hu89, how does one use the extra 3 keys? Is anything written for them? Or it is to give longer glissandos?

I just read that " Bösendorfer pioneered the extension of the typical 88-key keyboard, creating the Imperial Grand (Model 290), which has 97 keys (eight octaves). Ferruccio Busoni initially ordered this innovation in 1909 as part of a custom piano, as he wanted to transcribe an organ piece that extended to the C below the standard keyboard.[4] This innovation worked so well that this piano was added to regular product offerings and quickly became one of the world's most sought-after concert grands. " So I guess to better play organ pedal notes?

cyn427, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I actually saw PSO last Friday evening play this symphony in the exact same concert hall as the symphony in the video was played. It was truly a magical experience. One I'll never forget.

Regarding the Bosendorfer piano, thanks robo for posting more information. The Bosendorfer, in my opinion is one of the greatest pianos ever made.

By the way, the PSO is the only U.S. orchestra that's ever played at the Vatican for the Pope. If you ever get a chance to see them go it's an amazing orchestra.

I've actually played Schostakowitsch's 5th with an orchestra at Interlochen National Music Camp. It is a grueling intellectual and emotional experience. What a giant talent that man had!

I pinkmountain , he's one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. His 5th symphony is an amazing work of art that will stand the test of time. The intensity of this symphony was awe inspiring when I saw it played by the PSO.

I would go satin black, clean lines, nothing elaborately carved to draw attention to itself. We have a restored 1920s Chickering 6'5" grand meeting those criteria in our not-so-big living room. We have no other black furniture in there. Yes it dominates the room and lordy is it loud when you play, but that is how it should be - we are serious about our music in this house LOL! Satin black does not stick out and draw attention to itself, and if you keep the lid down (which we do because did I mention that a 6'5" piano in a smallish room is LOUD?) and lay a pretty scarf or shawl over it, you can even coordinate said scarf with your decor and hide most of the "black bulk." Seriously, you can't go wrong with a satin black grand piano - it's classic and just "goes" with everything else in the room.

Also, as a huge fan of older pianos, I keep checking this thread hoping to see a photo of your current "depression era fabulous" instrument!!!!

Buying a brand new piano is personal to the musician in my opinion. I think you have to figure out your budget and available size want/desire, also considering where you would place it so it’s not in direct sunlight. Once that’s figured out then the material/shade/color is icing on the cake. It just depends on your style preference. We had a baby grand for years, our kids grew up learning on it. We downsized recently and now our son has our piano and his kids are learning on it. Melts my heart. This is a pic of our antique Kimball (it has its matching bench but our

son works from this stool).

Swoon ^^^^^^

Thanks all!

The musician is a kid and while he will have to test and approve any piano, his decorating tastes are still developing. So the musician won't get whatever the musician wants. (I'm picturing glossy red or blue lacquer.) (I just realized that a matte red would look pretty good!)

As far as sound quality? The old piano sounds fine for practicing. It may not sound like a professional piano, but it sounds spectacular for a piano that is only 18 inches deep. The issue is that the kid is just ready for a more advanced instrument.

Our home is not really suitable for a real piano but what else can ya do?

(lkplatow, no photos at the moment, but it is this model: piano although the one advertised here does not have the proper bench. It looks nicer in person. Still, this is not a fancy instrument! But it is cute and sleek and you can serve food on it (I don't.) and you actually CAN cover it with a single scarf. (I did, until someone started playing it.) I should mention that this one is priced at least $6700 too high!)