Finding a piano when you travel

[Antoine]

Howdy - wondering what others do when they travel to other towns and cities for more than, say, three days and wish to find a piano to get an hour or two of practice in. I seem to remember long ago there was an app that could find you a piano, but the app seems to be defunct. I reckon I could search for a music school, but often those pianos are utter pieces of crap, which is ok, I guess, but I'm used to practicing and playing out on my grand and, ya know, a lousy piano makes one wince to listen to and play. I'm sure you understand.

Suggestions welcome...I'm leaving town tomorrow for two weeks, and that is far too long to be away from the piano in order to keep the chops up.

Cheers.

 

[tjw]

I'd check with the churches in the areas where you travel. It has become commonplace for churches to have well-designed electronic
pianos. The acoustic pianos in churches are notoriously tuned badly and in sore need of repair.

 

[delaware dave]

When I'm on the road due to work reasons I don't worry about "practicing". I do still like to play though, so I will check if there are open mics in the cities I'm traveling in or just look for a guitar center or a Sam Ash store to try out some of the newer keyboard models. That usually scratches the itch for me.

 

[CowboyNQ]

I'm in the middle of a 10 day stint on the road as I type this.

Depending on circumstance I:

a) take a lightweight keyboard with me to practice on, or
b) practice in the down time between sound check and gig, or
c) don't practice and double down before I go away

A lot of the venues I play have pianos in green rooms or backstage, but they're usually wildly out of tune and fairly annoying to use, so I don't bother.

 

[Eric Barker]

Curiously, I was in the UK, and some of the major train stations have pianos in them for people to play, curtesy of regional piano store. This was more in Scotland, but I wouldn't be surprised if England had some as well. Also, Brisbane (AU) airport has one, and I ended up on a Japanese TV show playing it somehow. It seems putting pianos in public spaces is becoming a thing.

 

[Biggles]

Just go into any Music Store in your motorcycle helmet and leathers and start playing ....... I guarantee no store staff will challenge you, especially if your mates go in the shop as well.