For more than a century, Yamaha has produced high-quality musical instruments by blending traditional craftsmanship with advanced digital technology to create sound quality that reflects years of accumulated technical expertise. New for 2022, Yamaha claims that the Clavinova CSP ‘will show you how easy it can be to play the piano and experience the joy of making music’.
Piano action and sounds
This full-size keyboard offers 88 weighted keys with synthetic ebony and ivory keytops. The keys are made from ‘Natural Wood X’, cut from wood that has been dried specifically for use in making musical instruments. The key action and escape mechanism has been carefully crafted to successfully mimic that of a grand piano.
This latest Yamaha Clavinova boasts an impressive 692 voices and 29 drum/SFX kits, including the piano sound sampled from the Yamaha CFX and Bösendorfer Imperial. In addition to selecting voices, users can adjust room and instrument settings such as lid position, brightness, curve touch, environment, tuning, virtual resonance modelling, and string and damper resonance. The permutations are endless and include tuning and volume settings for each individual key.
Look and feel
With the exception of the power button and volume slide to the right of the keyboard, there is no control panel. The extensive range of settings are selected using the Smart Pianist app by Yamaha on an iPad or iPhone (not included) connected by USB or wirelessly.
At almost 70kg with a solid stand, integrated triple pedal, fixed music stand, and retractable sliding keyboard cover, the CSP-170 Clavinova is best described as moveable, but not portable.
Smart Pianist
Using the Smart Pianist app, users can choose from an extensive selection of songs, offering a piano score and the option to play along with a backing track. To assist those less familiar with traditional music notation, blue and red stream lights above the keyboard guide the fingers.
This karaoke style feature will likely appeal to less experienced pianists, but an accomplished performance will require some patience and tenacity. At speed there is little time to anticipate the stream lights and it is particularly tricky to react to multiple lights in order to play notes simultaneously; the tempo adjustment slide is invaluable here. The finger dexterity required to manage chord shapes and melodic lines may prove challenging for those who have not received formal pianotuition.
A selection of technical exercises (from Beyer, Burgmüller, Czerny and Hanon) classed as ‘lessons’ are also provided, again offering both score and stream light features. The option to transpose these exercises and play along at a range of tempos may prove useful for those already working with a teacher to develop good piano technique.
Conclusion
This digital piano presents an interesting conundrum. The vast array of settings will have most relevance to experienced musicians with a comprehensive understanding of instrument variations and environmental acoustics. Conversely, the play along scores provided by the Smart Pianist app supported by the stream lights will likely appeal to less proficient users, possibly of a younger demographic. While there is much joy to be found in making music with this instrument, whether or not playing the piano is made ‘easy’ is debatable. Perhaps then, this is a piano to suit the whole family.
RRP: £3,649 incl. VAT
