What do you think: In times of unemployment, rampant foreclosures and imminent recession, would it be tasteless for me to review a home entertainment component that costs $42,000?
Good. I didn’t think so, either.
It’s a piano, actually. A Yamaha grand, 5ft 3 inches long (it comes in longer versions, actually, costing up to $150,000; but one step at a time).
This instrument, the Disklavier Mark IV, is the first piano in the world with an Internet connection. And since it’s also a digital player piano, all kinds of eyebrow-raising possibilities open up.
Like previous generations of Yamaha’s self-playing pianos, the Mark IV looks like any other grand—a gleaming, polished, stately presence in the living room. The only indications you have that something unusual is going on are the power and Ethernet cords sneaking out from underneath and a 2-inch-tall control panel peeking out from beneath the lower-left skirt of the instrument.
Maybe you’ve seen digital player pianos in a hotel lobby or shopping mall, playing holiday tunes all by themselves, keys and pedals madly going up and down. This is not an audio recording, mind you; the hammers strike real strings, making live acoustic music. It’s a re-creation of a real pianist’s performance, faithful to the tiniest grace note.
It’s also very freaky to watch.
The Disklavier’s remote battery lasts only for an hour or so once it is out of the charging dock
In the past, the well-heeled owners of these Disklavier pianos bought floppy disks or CDs containing recorded performances by famous pianists. At $30-35 an album, they’re not cheap; then again, who’s going to complain after buying a piano that costs as much as a Lexus?
The Internet connection adds a twist, however: It lets you subscribe to live piano “radio stations”. For $20 a month (or $200 a year), you can tune into channels such as Classical, Broadway or Rock. Your grand piano can now play itself all day in that musical style.
You can also buy songs à la carte. The Yamaha store is something like the iTunes store, complete with a 30-second preview of each song. The difference is that in this case, the previews (and the songs) are played live by a friendly ghost on the piano right next to you. Songs are pricey, still $30-35 an album. They’re tiny files; most download to the piano’s 80-gigabyte hard drive in about 2 seconds (the piano can also play standard, free MIDI files, which are available by the thousands online).
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “$42K? C’mon—even with all those features, this thing can’t be worth more than, like, 35 grand.”
But wait, there’s more. When a piano comes with a hard drive, Ethernet jack, video output, stereo speakers, audio/microphone input, CD and floppy drives, USB jacks and an open-source Linux operating system, all kinds of new tricks are possible:
Alarm clock
You can schedule particular songs to play automatically at up to 99 different times and dates.
Piano teacher