Piano & Keyboards
Buy and sell pianos and keyboards in Panama.
Most acoustic pianos that change hands in Panama are uprights leaving a family home, and years of humid air have already worked on the wood and felt inside, so the real inspection happens with the lid up. Next to them sit the digital piano a child practises on with headphones, the stage piano a band player carries to gigs and the arranger keyboard that turns one musician into a whole party band, new and pre-owned. A keyboard that fits in the back of a car and a piano that needs movers and a tuner are two different purchases, and they are judged in very different ways.
Damp air ages an upright piano faster than playing does:
wood, felt and steel all answer to it. An upright, strings standing in a cabinet against the wall, is the acoustic most homes have room for, and in a humid house the wood swells until keys go sluggish or stay down, strings and tuning pins rust, worst within reach of sea air, moths eat the hammer felts and termites go for the case. A piano kept in an air-conditioned room, away from outside walls, ages far better than one in a house left closed for months.
Silent uprights, hybrids and digital pianos in an apartment tower:
an acoustic cannot be turned down, and through a shared wall the neighbours hear every scale. A silent upright, made by Yamaha and Kawai, is a real piano with a rail that stops the hammers short of the strings and sends the sound to headphones instead, so it can be practised late at night. A hybrid pairs a wooden grand-style action with digital sound, and a plain digital piano reaches the same quiet for far less weight and money.
Stage pianos, arrangers and MIDI controllers for players who gig:
a stage piano has no speakers and outputs meant for a PA, so at home it needs an amplifier; Nord’s red ones and their Roland and Yamaha rivals are what working players look for. An arranger such as a Yamaha PSR-SX or a Korg Pa plays drums, bass and chords from the left hand, the tool of a solo act at a wedding. A MIDI controller has no sounds of its own and drives software on a laptop, which puts it closer to DJ equipment than to a piano. The piano accordion’s right hand is a keyboard too, so a pianist curious about folk music can start among the accordions.
A used upright is priced on its hammers and pins, not its age:
a new upright from Yamaha’s entry line runs from about $4,000 to $5,000 in Panama, and a baby grand starts around $12,000. A well-kept used upright from a Japanese maker is often the better buy, because the cabinet and iron frame last for generations: you are paying for the hammers, strings and pins, plus a tuning once it settles into its new room. Stage pianos and arrangers run the other way, losing value with each new model.
Lift the lid of a used upright before you play a note:
an orange bloom on strings and pins means damp, and pins that have loosened in the wood will not hold a tuning however often the tuner comes. Play every key slowly and fast: one that stays down or comes back lazily has swollen, and one that knocks or sounds twice points to worn action parts. Look for moth holes in the felts and termite trails behind the cabinet, and ask when it was last tuned: one left alone for years can take several visits to come back up to pitch, so on a serious price pay a technician to look first. On a digital or stage piano, listen for dead or double-firing notes and try every output.
An upright moves house with movers and a tuner:
so answer the logistics first. Say which floor the piano is on, whether it fits the service lift or how many flights of stairs it goes down, and how close a van can park. Photograph the maker’s name on the fallboard, the serial number on the iron frame and the hammers with the front panel off, and say when it was last tuned and whether it lived with air conditioning; for a keyboard, list the stand, pedal and case. Uprights often come up when a family is packing to leave the country, so give the date the flat has to be empty: the buyer needs those days to book both.