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Showing posts with the label yamaha

Piano Repair

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M y piano has been broken for almost two months which has been a bit frustrating.   It started showing signs of a problem with my pedals one day.  As I was playing a piece, I instantly noticed that the piano was sounding very muddy like I had my foot mashed down on the sustain pedal but I hadn't been using the pedal.  I stopped playing and then played a single staccato note...   the note sustained rather than being a short duration.  I snapped the sustain pedal up and down a few times...  the pedal unit still wasn't working correctly. I turned the piano off and went around to the other side of the piano to unplug the pedal unit and re-plug it into its jack.  I did that and then started up the piano again.  It seemed okay for a day or two but then the same thing happened again. Over the course of the next few days, sometimes the pedal unit would sustain all the time, other times it would not respond at all, sometimes it worked as it should.  Most of the time, however, it had a m

Sony Bravia 4K HDR Television

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Back in early December, we bought ourselves an early Christmas present... a new Sony Bravia 4K HDR television for our living room.  As most of you already know, I am a big fan of Sony products and we have many. We already had a Sony Bravia television but it was rather small for our living room and only "HD" in resolution ("HD" as in 720p...  not even 1080 Full HD). It was time for a much needed upgrade since there is such a tremendous difference between 4K and Full HD... and our resolution was even lower at 720p HD! Early December was a busy time for us... Sheila's cancer treatment and recovery, Liza's wedding, Christmas fast approaching, etc... so I made a quick swap with the televisions. I pulled out the old television and quickly hung the new, larger, better 4K HDR television. Everything seemed to be working fine and the picture was far better so I just left it all as is. Well... I must admit that I  did slightly adjust the picture settings to get a

Video Samples of Today's Yamahas

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I previously wrote about designing and building my own grand piano using a Yamaha keyboard as the base for the keyboard and sound. In that blog entry, I wrote about designing my own piano around a Yamaha digital piano but I didn't provide any samples to back up my claims. Below, are two short videos which I find to be excellent examples of today's Yamaha digital pianos.  The first is a video of classical pianist, Dominic Piers Smith, performing and providing some of his thoughts about Yamaha's current digital pianos. The second video features a beautiful and moving performance by pop singer Susan Albers. Both videos are impressive and certainly showcase today's Yamaha digital piano.

Sketching More Plans...

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As if my current 'to-do' list isn't long enough, as I've been recovering from a foot injury over the past month, I've been sketching some designs and plans for a new digital grand piano to add to my 'to-do' list! I've been thinking about designing my own piano for many years. Long ago, I accepted the fact that I would never be able to afford to buy a new commercially manufactured grand piano so I've been creatively designing my own piano. The truth is, this plan has been simmering in the back of my mind for quite some time but, lately, I've been more persistent and detail-oriented in figuring out dimensions, sketching ideas, and working out design issues. Some of the many sketches of a bored maniac... For the most part, I've been laid up with my foot elevated for at least a month now. While I installed that new flooring and new ADA toilet in our master bathroom a bit more than a month ago, I somehow injured my achilles tendon and my