Showcase Pianos & Music Academy

I came to Aberdeen Mall to have tea with a girlfriend and we did some browsing in the mall. This was one of the stores that we visited. Firstly the store is very well laid out and organized. Very inviting shopping experience. I am not the piano player, my GF is, however, I have studying reading music and was intrigued by what the going rate for pianos are these days. We came here more or less for fantasizing about winning the lottery as these are really really high end pianos. It was nice to pretend to be rich for a day. Even though we were browsing, they were still nice and the customer service was awesome.

It is said that Mozart started composing music from the age of four. However, not all of us are that amazing, so we have to resort to actually practicing an instrument before we get good at it, or rather in Wolfie’s case, all of them.
Showcase Pianos is a store that specializes in high-​end pianos. There is a smaller room devoted to their uprights which you have to walk through first, but their main feature are their Bechstein pianos (in the $ 20,000+ realm even for an upright) or their Faziolis (which can go up to a quarter of a million — yes, forget getting your kid that RESP, you’d be better off making them into the next Lang Lang). The features Bechstein is known for is a nice, integrated sound that can mimic a grand from the upright form, which is pretty impressive (if you see the soundboard for a grand piano and compare it to an upright, you will see what I mean… those strings aren’t there to just look cute!).
What makes the Fazioli about the price of 3 Steinways (which they don’t carry)? Basically, the Fazioli is hand-​tuned and handmade just like a Steinway, but the materials are ridiculous. The wood for the soundboard is what they also use for Stradivarius violins, which often reach the seven digits because of their unique construction and ability to project sound. The hinges are 18K gold (I have no idea why this is needed), and everything has been put through a rigorous test.
How rigorous? Basically, every note in the Fazioli is extremely distinct sounding, and is easily brought out when one plays it. A Fazioli makes it so a performer doesn’t need to really compensate for the muddying that often occurs on other pianos, particularly in the lower ranges. It can sound mechanical to some but it also means that you have a very high degree of control on how a piece is going to sound, which probably sounds quite odd to someone who doesn’t play, as you’re sitting up there tinkering about. However, there are certain ways a composition was written that make it very hard to «clean», or to make it sound clearer. Some decent examples would be to see a local recital soloist play Chopin or Debussy and then compare the same piece as done by some of the professionals as featured on Youtube.
They let me play the Fazioli without any fuss, as well as any Bechsteins I wanted. The lady who was giving me a bit of a tour then sat me down to discuss purchasing them. There is no financing plan here unfortunately (unlike when you get some instruments from Tom Lee, I believe), but she did give me the full run-​through and promotional materials even though I was dressed in jogging pants and a hoodie with a grease stain on it.
So they treated me well, and let me play. Though, that may be about as far as I’ll get with them for a long time.