As the tuner was doing his thing, I picked his brain a bit about pianos.

• As far as digital vs. acoustic pianos, he has a digital keyboard because he lives in a small townhome, otherwise he’d prefer a vertical.
• Learning on heavier feeling keys and transitioning to a lighter keyed piano is easier than the other way around. So when you’re picking a piano, keep that in mind. That, and of course, price.
• Spinets - the smallest size of the upright pianos - are terrible. Avoid them.
• You should get your piano serviced once a year. I think we hadn’t had ours tuned for over 15 years. Oops.
• If you want a grand piano, the cheapest decent one might run upwards of $50k. But you can get one for under $10k from China. He’s not sure how long they last though because he doesn’t know if the wood is properly aged and whatnot. Yowza! That’s a pricey little toy.
• If he were to recommend a piano he’d pick a Boston. Although for him, Yamaha’s are easy to tune.

Then he picked my brain about Chinese because he’s trying to teach himself the language. Must be a lot of Chinese households with pianos.

The piano sounds so much better now! Maybe it’ll make me want to play it more now. Imagine, I, who can’t tell one note from another, could hear the flatness of the piano. It was pretty bad. He said he’d seen worse though. A whole note off.