Baby Grand Pianos

Here are some valuable facts about baby grand pianos that will help you understand their merits and compromises as well as essential baby grand buying advice.

How much do baby grand pianos cost?

We specialise in affordable high quality baby grand pianos - assuring you of a pleasing tone, responsive touch and high standard of finish, at a relatively low price. Low quality is a false economy and we understand that top quality is typically too expensive. You will be pleased that we have the happy medium right here, a very safe place to be! Prices start at around £5,500 for a new baby grand with our quality approval and 5 year guarantee.

What size is a baby grand piano

A baby grand piano is between 4'6" (145cms) - 5'8" (173cms) in length, and around 5' (152cms) wide. The tail (end opposite from the keyboard, with one leg) is around 3' wide.

Why should I buy a baby grand piano?

Baby grands are popular because of their unique appearance as a highly desirable piece of furniture, they are easy to accomodate and visually more inviting to play than upright pianos. As well as being an effective 'action' upgrade from an upright to grand, providing the player more touch response and efficiency, the tone of a baby grand is very different (not necesarily better in all respects) to an upright piano of similar price.

Older baby grands are cheaper, but is age a higher price in itself?

Modern design and engineering is very effective - and worth so much. Older pianos (pre-1930's) built by top piano makers in their day eg. Bluthner, Bechstein or Grotrian Steinweg are very attractive on price vs. the same models brand new. However, they simply do not match up. The designs are very different: the actions weren't as good, the scale designs weren't so well engineered and the timbers were not built with central heating in mind. Add to this the fact that they have been subject to around 20tonnes of combined string tension for over 80years, probably been moved over 10 times and been heavily played, the result really is a substandard instrument that cannot compete with a good quality modern piano.

'Restored' is a very loosely used term in the piano trade, so get an independent technician to see how well, how much and how recently the 'restoration' has been done. Full restoration costs are typically in excess of £4,000 - so don't expect a £4,500 baby grand piano to have been 'restored' properly.

If you want to consider an old baby grand piano, try some good quality but affordable new / nearly new pianos as well, so you can gauge the performance, condition and value of pianos for yourself.

Here's a fact: We supply many new Brodmann, Yamaha and Venables & Son baby grand pianos to homes, professionals and institutions who have a pre 1930's 'premium' baby grand for part exchange. What does that say?

Where is the biggest improvement in most baby grand pianos, in performance for size?

It is very important to look at the width of the main body and moreso the tail end. Two 5' baby grands may sound very different, depending on the profile of the tail. A wide tail will accomodate longer bass strings, provide more soundboard area and allow for a more receptive position for the bridge. We don't advise buying baby grand pianos under 5' in length, as the tone in the bass can be very poorly pronounced. However, a wide-tail 5' (length) can be so impressive, that a narrow-tail 5'5" seems an unjustifiable progression. Our recommendation: longest and widest 'good quality' baby grand you can accomodate and afford!

Should I buy a decent big upright piano or a baby grand piano?

Tone: A full height (131cm) upright piano will usually have a much fuller bass and deeper, more powerfull lower-mid register, but the baby grand will become more lyrical and pure from the mid register upwards. The 2 factors in the relative tone differences are string length and soundboard area. A 6' grand has equivalent soundboard surface area and bass string length to a 130cm upright, and a 5' grand equivalent to a 116cm upright.

Soundboard Area: the hammers strike the strings upwards on a grand, so the soundboard doesn't start until after the action, hammers and dampers. On upright pianos, the hammers strike the strings from the front - allowing the soundboard to start right from the top of the strings. The unique profile of a grand piano is to taper the soundboard to suit the pitch and frequency of the strings like premium speaker cabinets having bass, mid and treble cones for a truer sound reproduction than a 'full range' cone. A grand works like a premium cabinet and an upright soundboard is like a full range. More surface area gives a better bass, but is inefficient at higher frequencies and higher pitch. All grands of all sizes should have a more melodic, less percussive tone in the treble and upper mid registers, in comparison with big uprights.

String Length: Tall uprights have the capacity to accomodate longer bass strings than short baby grands, so the bass register is typicaly better on a full height upright than a baby grand. The benefit of longer strings tapers out into the lower mid section where a 5' grand has similar string length. So, its just a better bass and lower mid on a tall upright - not a better upper mid and treble!

Touch: the action of a baby grand is better for developing your technique. Repetition is improved as the roller action design allows for fast repetition with just half return of the key, where an upright piano action requires full return or it will block.

Pedals: left (una-corda) shifts the keyboard to the right just enough for the hammer to omit the 1st of 3 strings of a note at full pedal depression, which makes a quieter and less full sound, and at half pedal depression, the uncompressed face/tip of the hammer felt strikes the strings resulting in a full, yet mellow tone. The left pedal of an upright piano (half blow) offers the hammers half way towards the strings, lightening the touch and reducing the hammer momentum to the string - more of an aid to the player in pressing the key with less force than actually producing a much quieter or softer tone.

Pedals: center (sostenuto) allows the player to sustain (not damp / ring on) selected notes, so non-selected notes remain damped for either stacatto playing or to acheive controlled sympathetic note/chord harmonics from the selected notes. Upright piano center pedals (except very few uprights) have a Celeste rail (practice facility) to mute the sound as a practice aid. The celeste rail is a curtain of felt lowered between the hammers and strings to muffle the sound.

Pedals: right (sustain) has the same function on both baby grand pianos and upright pianos.

What's best for you?

You may prioritise the appearance, touch, pedals and upper register tonality of the baby grand - where others may prefer a deeper bass, fuller lower-mid tone range and practice pedal (celeste rail) of a tall upright, whilst maintaining good living space. Remember, it is personal, subjective and only you know what's best for you.

We recommend visiting our baby grand piano showrooms by informal appointment so you can fully appreciate the true differences between tall uprights and baby grands, select from a hand-picked selection of affordable high standard baby grands, and play in privacy.

Let's talk about baby grand pianos!

You prefer to get advice on what baby grand piano is best for you, so pick up the phone and call us! We want you to get the best advice on buying a baby grand piano.

Better still, if you want to visit our piano shop in Hampshire to try our baby grand pianos, we'll give you the whole shop full of pianos all to yourself to play, free from an audience! ...and we'll pay your travel expenses on purchase*. Call us on 01425 476644