Mix Margaret Dylan Jones

A bench, chair or stool for playing the piano needs these features:

• Strength & stability
  
• No creaking noises
• No bumps or holes
• A flat, level surface so your pelvis is not angled back,  forward, or sideways
  
• No wheels

Optional extras:

• Padding
• Adjustable height

However, for padding you can always find a (thin, even) cushion or a folded towel, and the vertical adjustment can be achieved using a home-made piano chair box that you place on the floor underneath the chair (as in the photo at the bottom of this page or see piano-chair-boxes.html).



Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

These four chairs are perfect for piano playing, and were all found left out on the side of the road for local council collection.

You don't need a back support when you're at the piano, so the two chairs in the middle could have their damaged back supports removed, making them into piano stools.



Why do they need to be strong?

The way I sit at the piano, which I also teach to my students, means there's a lot of weight on the front edge of the chair or bench. If you practice for up to 36 hours per week (as I have often done), and you weigh 96 kg (which I usually do), at some point they eventually break. Which is all the more reason to use a recycled kitchen chair rather than paying many hundreds of dollars for a bench or adjustable chair or stool. See more about how to sit at piano-sitting-height.html

This final photo shows how you can adjust the height, which is crucial. See more about boxes by clicking here: piano-chair-boxes.html.



Back to piano-paraphernalia.html or piano-information.html

Piano chair & box photos (c) Margaret Dylan Jones 2012, 2013.