Truly we are in the midst of a revolution. The digital age is very much upon us but we can often find it difficult to see the speed or size of this change. The digial piano is a very good indicator of the size of this change. The acoustic piano has gone through around 300-400 years of constant development only to be threatened by the advent of the digital piano.
There is no handcrafting that goes into a digital piano - only computerised simulations and computerised exterior designs. There is no room for any variance from one instrument to the next. If one digital piano sounds slightly different from another, then there is a fault.
The digital piano does of course have its own impressive list of benefits over its large, heavy acoustic counterparts. Namely that you can stow it away to conserve space, you can plug in headphones so as not to disturb anyone, you can change the timbre and sounds of the instrument in a million different ways and you can connect it to a computer for more fun.
So where does this leave the ancient skills of designs, creating, improving and maintaing the marvellous instrument that is the piano? Will the digital piano resign it to the confines of history books. Perhaps even concert halls will soon embrace the digital piano as a way to make sure that everyone in the hall can hear it properly - it could be plugged in to a speaker system which would then be channelled throughout the auditorium.
If you have a digital piano you may wish to visit the digital piano forum
.